


to roll with what comes

by symmetricdnp



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Getting Together, M/M, Soul Bond, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 19:31:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17127398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/symmetricdnp/pseuds/symmetricdnp
Summary: But Phil had thought those were just stories. Stories that people would stumble upon online or hear from a friend, that’d make them think of how lucky they were that it didn’t happen to them.Phil's comfortable yet decidedly average life gets turned upside down when he ends up bonded to a barista that he's exchanged about three sentences with.





	to roll with what comes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queerofcups](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerofcups/gifts).



> When I saw this prompt I knew I had to do this one. I didn't exactly intend for it to turn out this long, but once I had the idea in my head I had to get it out. It ended up a bit different from what I originally envisioned, and obviously there's a bunch of different ways your prompt could've went. But I hope you find at least something in here that's enjoyable!
> 
> My eternal gratitude and loyalty goes to my beta Liz. Liz, you have the patience of a saint and I still think I need to make you a medal or something.

Phil groans and runs a hand through his hair before pushing his chair back violently and standing up. He stomps off to the kitchen for his third coffee of the day while he tries not to do anything too childish like knock down the vase that’s sitting on the counter.

It’s been six hours. Six hours, and he hasn’t done anything except review the footage his client sent and scroll through Twitter on his second monitor. It isn’t anything he hasn’t done before. He’s worked with them before, even, on the exact same type of project. He remembers blazing through it with a week to spare on the estimate he’d told them, and getting paid much more than he’d thought he deserved. It’d been one of the most painless things he’d ever edited.

And now here he is, feeling like he’s trying to work on the first project of his career with the worst hangover of his life. A hangover that’s lasted nearly two weeks, now. He supposes he should go see his doctor, but he keeps thinking it’ll get better by the time he gets an appointment anyway. He should’ve just called back when it first started. He didn’t think it’d get so bad that it’d start affecting his work.

He puts his mug of coffee beneath his nose and lets the smell of cheap instant brew quell his irritation. It’s okay. He should be able to do this. He’s worked when he was ill before, back when he didn’t quite understand how to balance his work and personal life. But there’s something off this time. It isn’t only pain and aches. There’s something about his focus, too. He finds himself just staring off into nothing sometimes, often realizing he’s been spacing out for ten minutes or more. As he goes over it in his head, he realizes he should really, really see a doctor.

He puts his mug of coffee down and sighs in resignation. He hates making phone calls. And he hates spending a day trying to work and feeling completely unproductive.

Maybe he should get out of the house. It’s been two weeks since this whole thing started and consequently two weeks since he set foot out of his flat for anything besides getting the mail. Takeout and frozen meals are too convenient.

His dull headache seems to get worse as he thinks about actually getting dressed properly and walking around and even potentially talking to people. Going to the park across the way is out of the question. He could sit, but it’s probably cold out and it’s always full of people anyway. He could go to the shop, but he doesn’t actually need anything and having to lug back a bag or two sounds miserable. He tries not to feel too pathetic as he realizes how decidedly unexciting his social life is.

He decides on stopping by the little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop about two blocks away. It’ll force him to get a bit of exercise, he can get a muffin, and there’s hardly ever anyone else in there. 

He grabs a coat and forces himself to make his quiff presentable before he sets out. Being out in the fresh air doesn’t make him feel any better, but it doesn’t make him feel any worse, either. He was slightly worried he’d keel over and faint on the way there. 

He hopes the one working at the shop is the tall guy that seems like he never wants to be there instead of the nice old lady that’s probably the owner. She’s a little too talkative and bright for Phil. He’s not usually this unsociable, but he only ever goes to the cafe half-asleep in the morning before he’s had a coffee, and right now he feels worse than any morning grumpiness ever has.

He’s actually never been there this late in the afternoon, and as he pushes the door open he vaguely wonders if he’ll see someone new. But no, he was right—standing behind the counter is that same guy, looking just as bored as always. He gives a nod in Phil’s direction when he notices he’s there.

Phil lingers back as he looks at the pastries in the display case, before he’s suddenly overtaken by something unsettling. 

He looks up, and the guy’s staring at him. No, he’s gaping. Phil can hardly remember the last time the guy looked him in the eye, and here he is with his mouth hanging open, flat-out gawking at Phil.

Which, okay. Alright. Phil isn’t going to make this weird. He’s probably—maybe Phil accidentally put his trousers on backwards or something. Maybe he just looks as shit as he feels and he didn’t really notice. Whatever it is, Phil sure as hell isn’t going to acknowledge it.

“Oh my god,” the guy says, and there goes that plan.

Phil wonders if he should bolt. “It’s you, isn’t it? Oh my god, I was fu—I was going through everybody I knew, trying to think who the hell I hadn’t seen lately. I didn’t even consider customers. I just resigned to slowly withering away, because holy shit, I’ve been dying. Like, actually. I thought I was done for, I…”

“Um,” Phil tries as politely as possible. “I think you might have me confused for someone else?”

Phil can practically see the gears turning in the guy’s head. He really wants to turn around and walk out of what’s probably one of the weirdest experiences of his life, but somehow he feels too awkward to.

“Oh, right. So. Uh, I’m Dan, first of all,” Dan says. He clears his throat and starts walking away from the counter, and Phil watches in horror as he comes over and starts heading towards Phil. Dear god, Phil is about to die. Phil shuffles a tiny bit back, though he stays basically rooted to the spot. He’s still afraid of offending this very weird stranger, even though he’s probably coming over to mug Phil right now.

“I’ve like—oh god, I don’t want to do this. I’ve thought of literally so many things to say, like, properly practised a speech and everything, but I think I should just say it first? I mean, I was hoping it’d be someone I actually knew, but.” Dan chuckles nervously.

“I think… wrong person…” Phil trails off weakly.

“Alright, please don’t freak out because I don’t fucking get it either, but, um. I think we might’ve bonded?”

***

“This isn’t possible,” Phil states.

“Not to be a smartass, but obviously it is?”

Dan led him to one of the tables in the back, where they’ve been sitting for the past ten minutes or so. Phil would be concerned about taking Dan’s attention away from the front, but he doesn’t even have the mental energy to spare for that right now.

“No, but, we’re not—you’re not—I’ve literally never even talked to you!” Phil protests. “Besides, like, ordering.”

“Please don’t tell me you believe the bullshit about it being based on, like, particularly deep love or something. Because there’s lots—well, not lots, but still—of people that barely know each other and end up bonded. And Irene and her wife have been together an actual eternity and haven’t bonded, so it’s double-bullshit.”

“I don’t, shit, I know all that. I just… I didn’t think…”

 _I didn’t think it would happen to me_ , Phil doesn’t say. He may feel like his soul’s been projected straight into a comedy show in hell, but he’s still self-aware enough that he can stop himself from whining too much.

“Look,” Dan says. “The only reason I seem all… calm, or like relieved, or whatever, is because like I told you. I’ve been dying. I’m still a little in shock that you came back and this can finally fucking stop. The first couple days I thought it was just my usual… I dunno, shittiness, it happens sometimes. But then it wouldn’t go away. I didn’t think I could last another day through work, I was already preparing for not making rent and getting kicked out and having to live in the back of the kitchen—”

“Wait, like. Shitty, shitty how?” It’s not that Dan’s convincing him, he isn’t, but… it sounds a little familiar.

“God, where do I even begin? Like, all floaty and dreamy and spaced-out, but in a really fucking bad way. And like, I don’t even usually get headaches, but shit. Anyway, then you walked in and they stopped, so… cheers.”

Phil realizes, with an odd combination of relief and confusion, that his headache is gone.

That isn’t a very good sign for what he’s currently trying to deny.

“Um,” Phil starts. “I don’t, sorry, I don’t… understand? Like, what. What do you want me to do?”

Dan kind of looks like he’s getting frustrated with an uncooperative toddler. And maybe Phil deserves that, with the way he’s acting clueless, but he still doesn’t appreciate being so obviously judged as an idiot. “You realize this affects us both, right? Dunno why you’re making it sound like I’m inconveniencing you.”

Phil lets out a humorless laugh. “Okay, okay. I mean. There’s… people for this, right? Are we supposed to see someone?”

“How sheltered are you?” Dan starts bouncing his leg up and down. “We can go see a specialist if you want, but Google is a thing that exists. They’ll just tell us the same thing. And like, if you don’t believe me for some weird reason, you should be able to tell for yourself. You can’t feel anything, right? That’s not how it’s supposed to be. We need to give it time to… grow, or settle, or… I forget the word they use. But still.”

Phil faintly registers in his head that this Dan guy is actually a bit rude. And that’s truly Phil’s luck. Thousands of strangers out there, and Phil gets bonded to one that’s a dick. He’s about to open his mouth to apologize for not being an expert on unexpected bonding procedure, but Dan continues.

“Or do you want both of us to keep suffering like we have been? Come on. We don’t need to be connected at the hip. I could just, like, go over to your place after work or some shit. Or the other way around if we had to.”

There’s a note of desperation in Dan’s voice, and for a second Phil starts assuming the worst. God, if Dan is one of those people that believes in destiny or soulmates or something like that, Phil’s fucked. If Dan doesn’t want to try and break it for any reason, really, Phil’s fucked. Before he can start spiraling too hard, he realizes that Dan’s probably talking about the symptoms they’ve apparently both had the past two weeks. And, well, that’s fair. Phil wants those to go away too, of course.

He’s aware that Dan’s staring at him waiting for an answer, but he takes a deep breath and tries to collect himself. Really, he’d believed Dan pretty soon after he’d explained himself, but Phil had wanted to fight it a little. But whether he likes it or not, this is reality. Being difficult and pretending like he has no idea what a bond is isn’t going to get him anywhere. 

“Okay,” Phil sighs.

“Okay?”

He needs to deal with this one step at a time. For now, the priority is getting these bloody headaches to stop so he can actually do his job. He can deal with everything else once he gets there.

“Okay. You can come over to my place after work, if you want. You’re right. I can’t function like this. Let’s just… let’s just worry about getting it settled or whatever so we can both stop suffering.”

Dan blinks. “Wow, okay. Um, great. Sorry, you’re kinda weird and I really thought you were gonna like, try to convince me that we didn’t need to or some shit.” Phil really hopes Dan is the type that gets better as you get to know him, because right now, he’s grating on Phil’s nerves. “Should we—I guess I should give you my number, obviously. Here, give me your phone.”

He stops himself from making a quip about how beat up and cracked Dan’s screen is. Dan seems to have no problem making jabs at Phil even though they’re complete strangers, but Phil doesn’t know how Dan would react to the other way around. 

“I think we should be good for today,” Dan continues. “Since we saw each other here. It’s probably like the longer the better, but I’m assuming you’re gonna need time tonight to like. Lay in bed and contemplate your life choices and why you ever decided to start coming to this shitty little coffee shop.”

“Right,” Phil snorts. He still can’t get a read on Dan’s personality, on if he’s trying to be an asshole or if he just has an asshole-adjacent sense of humor, so Phil goes with simple acknowledgement. “So I guess just, text me tomorrow when you want to come over. I work from home, but I still try to have a schedule of late morning until 5 or 6.” 

“I get off at 4, but I usually end up staying late to close up and shit since Irene hardly actually comes in anymore. So, same. And it’s probably best I have time to go home and change and possibly yell into a pillow before you have to deal with me.”

“Alright, well. I guess I’ll… be off then…”

“Right. I’ll…” Dan’s eyes widen. “Oh fuck. You didn’t even get what you came in here for, did you? Fuck, I should’ve got you a coffee while we were sitting here or something. Here, I’ll feel like a dick if you leave with nothing.”

Dan jumps up and rushes back behind the counter before Phil has time to say that it’s fine. Dan looks over at him all wide-eyed and expectant and frazzled and it’s… it’s funny. Phil would even describe it as cute, if he hadn’t spent the last half-hour or so silently judging the guy for seeming like an asshole.

Dan forces Phil to take a muffin before he leaves, but Phil’s too caught up in his head to properly thank him.

***

It’s been half an hour since Dan texted that he’d be over soon, and Phil is decidedly calm. Decidedly calm because even though he feels like his heart is going to jackhammer right out of his chest, he _has_ to be calm. It’s been a day since Phil discovered he’s now, apparently, part of a bond, and he’s hardly done anything but agonize over it.

He’s come to the conclusion that he has no idea what to do. He’s heard stories before, of course, of situations like this. Bonds between people that hardly knew each other, bonds between people that were married to others, bonds between people that hated each other. Bonds that, for one reason or another, were unwanted. But those were just—stories, Phil had thought. Stories that people would stumble on online or hear from a friend that’d make them think how lucky they were that it didn’t happen to them.

Or, he understands what they’re supposed to do on a logical level. He hates admitting that Dan’s snide remark of _Google is a thing that exists_ actually helped, but—really, Phil hadn’t been very interested in bonds before this whole thing. Maybe he really had been a little sheltered. Years ago he’d sat through the chapter or two on bonding back in his school’s health class, and had promptly pushed the concept of bonding out of his mind. None of his friends were bonded, none of his family were bonded, and the entire idea of it creeped him out. It still does.

Bonding is rare enough that he didn’t think it’d happen to him, period. Let alone that he’d bond to a guy he’d exchanged maybe three sentences with.

Now he’s read the articles, the forum posts, the pages on bond therapists’ websites that were slightly helpful but were also obviously meant to bring in business. He should be around Dan as much as possible, until it settles. Until the physical effects start coming through. Then they can wean off of each other, but they shouldn’t go for too long with no contact, or the symptoms might start coming back. Nothing gave concrete numbers, no guidelines they could follow so they won’t have to be together longer than necessary.

Even worse, the advice for breaking the bond boiled down to: hope for the best.

Which didn’t necessarily come as a huge surprise. Phil knew, even through the self-imposed limit on his knowledge, that the breakage of bonds is still a bit of a mystery. Still, he’d been kind of hoping that he simply hadn’t heard of some huge scientific breakthrough from the past couple years. One where him and Dan could just go see some special doctor and get the bond zapped away.

Phil’s doing a pretty terrible job at keeping calm, now. As he goes over it all in his head, he has to stop himself from standing up and pacing around the room.

Anything he starts thinking or planning doesn’t matter until he knows what Dan wants to do. He tries to think back on his reaction yesterday, but Phil had been so shocked and out of it, he barely remembers. There’s enough people in the world that romanticize bonding for Phil to be nervous. He’s not sure what makes bonds break, but he imagines that one side _wanting_ it wouldn’t help very much.

Before he can start spiraling too far, his doorbell startles him out of his trance.

Right. Dan’s here. Dan’s here because they’re going to discuss this all, and decide what they’re going to do, like adults. Phil had told himself that at 3am last night when he couldn’t shut his brain up and go to sleep. 

Phil yanks the door open with probably more enthusiasm than necessary. 

“Hey,” Dan says. He’s wearing a big puffy jacket zipped up so high it covers his mouth. 

“Um, hi,” Phil says. He steps aside. “Come in?”

Dan walks in and Phil watches as he looks around, probably silently judging his flat. It’s not messy, but it’s not particularly nice, either. Phil thanks his self of last night for at least having the sense to pick up the socks that’d been laying around.

“Do you want something to drink?” Phil asks, because even though he doesn’t exactly have a good impression of Dan, he’s not actively going to be rude. “I have coffee, or tea, or hot cocoa—”

“I’m fine,” Dan cuts off. “Can I put my coat somewhere?”

“Anywhere,” Phil shrugs. “I’m not exactly organized. Oh, but you should take off your shoes. If that’s okay.”

Dan starts taking off his jacket, so Phil turns around and pretends to be looking for something on the kitchen counter. He feels… a little off. He doesn’t have people in his flat often, and most of the time those people are his family, anyway. It’s been several years since he started working from home, and he didn’t realize how invasive it’d feel to have someone he barely knows around. He distinctly remembers the unsettling feeling he’d get back when he was a teenager and his mum would barge into his room to chat.

“I… um, actually,” comes Dan’s voice. Phil turns around and looks Dan in the eyes. Very, very purposefully in the eyes, because Dan’s out of his jacket now and wearing a jumper that’s big and fuzzy and it’s not even provocative or anything, but—he looks good. He always does, Phil isn’t blind. Even though he’d mainly visited the cafe when he was half-asleep, he’d still recognized that Dan was attractive. He hadn’t particularly cared about the possibility of Dan noticing his appreciation before, but it feels different, now. 

“Yeah?” Phil asks once he realizes he was supposed to respond.

“Maybe. Maybe some hot cocoa would actually be good?”

Phil’s not sure why, but something about the hesitance in Dan’s voice makes him laugh. “Sure, alright. I thought you were fine?”

Dan’s gaze shifts into a glare. “Yeah, well, I changed my mind. And you offered, so.”

“Right, you’re right,” Phil says, biting back another laugh at Dan’s defiance. The tension in his shoulders seems to have relaxed a little. “Though you know, I think you’re one of the only people to actually accept my offer. Most people are too polite or something, I guess.”

“Don’t offer if you don’t wanna make it!” Dan protests, his voice pitching higher than Phil would’ve ever thought possible for someone of his build.

“No, I’ll make it, I’ll make it,” Phil says. He reaches out and pushes Dan’s shoulder. “Go sit on the sofa or whatever. The remote should be around if you want to watch something.”

Phil shuffles off to the kitchen before Dan can say any more. He’s calmed down considerably now that Dan’s actually here, but he still stalls by making two of the damn best hot cocoas he’s ever made. The whipped cream forms a perfect little curl at the end, the peppermint sprinkles are evenly distributed, and he even draws a smiley face on the marshmallow he plops on the side with an icing pen. Anything to put off the discomfort of the conversation he’s sure is waiting for him. (Or he just gets way too into it.)

“Alright in there?” comes Dan’s voice, and Phil sighs as he puts down the biscuit he was about to decorate. He should probably get this over with.

“Sorry,” Phil says as he precariously makes his way to Dan with both mugs in hand. Dan’s doing something on his phone, sitting ruler-straight on the edge of Phil’s sofa. He looks rather awkward, but Phil supposes it’s better than if he’d slung his leg up on the arm like he owned the place.

“Jesus,” Dan says as Phil hands him a mug. “I thought you were just gonna throw a spoon or two of cocoa in some tap water and zap it in the microwave. I don’t even make shit like this at work.”

Phil’s a bit surprised that he’s here joking around with Dan like everything’s fine, but he says, “I hope you’re at least not making hot cocoa with water. Milk’s the bare minimum of care. Don’t think I’d be able to trust the other drinks either, if that was the case.”

Dan takes a concerningly large gulp before Phil can warn him that it’s hot, but he doesn’t seem to care. “No water, but I still wouldn’t exactly trust the quality, at least when I’m the one making them. I think Irene just keeps me around because she feels bad for me. Too bad, maybe if they were good enough, you could just come do your work in the cafe all day and we wouldn’t have to meet up at night.”

Phil feels like he just tripped after he’d thought there was one more stair to go. He really wasn’t expecting Dan to reference their little predicament so early, and so casually. Though maybe that’s how they should be, maybe that’s the mature way to handle it. Maybe the fact that Phil’s referring to it as _their little predicament_ in his head show’s there’s more of a problem on Phil’s part.

Phil must really be horrible at keeping a neutral face, because Dan seems to catch his confusion. “What, should I not talk about it?” He’s smiling, but it looks a little patronizing, almost. More like a smirk. “Don’t think there’s any point in pretending like it’s not happening. Normally I’d say if you want to run away from reality, go ahead. But we’re both in this, so could you not?”

“I'm not,” Phil grits out, and he can feel his face starting to flush in irritation. “I didn’t—I didn’t even say anything, jesus. A bit of a prick, aren’t you?”

His anger dissipates as his own candor shocks him. He can’t remember the last time he said something like that, to anyone. Then again, he’s spent the last two weeks in a living hell and has just found out he’s stuck in a bond that could very well be permanent if he’s really unlucky. Maybe there’s some justification for unusual behavior.

But his own surprise doesn’t seem to compare to Dan’s. His face shifts instantly, that stupid grin replaced with a wide-eyed stare. “Oh,” he says, quietly. “Sorry.”

Phil waits for whatever’s next— _Sorry, didn’t realize I couldn’t even make a bloody joke_ —but it doesn’t come. Dan looks away and shifts back and forth.

Well, shit.

Phil clears his throat. He doesn’t really want to apologize, because Dan _was_ being a prick. He was. Phil definitely, probably isn’t the bad guy here. So it’s really not fair that Dan’s sitting there looking nearly pitiful. Phil shouldn’t have to be physically holding back a sorry.

So he does what he does best, and changes the subject. “Anyway. You’re right that we should, like. Talk about it. That’s why we’re here.”

Dan glances back up at Phil and gives him a half-assed smile. “Well, we’re technically here because our bond is a needy fuck and’ll throw a tantrum if we don’t see each other. But fair enough.”

He sits up straight and seems to regain his composure. “So… I don’t know how much you know, you seemed confused yesterday—”

“It’s fine,” Phil interrupts. “I was just out of it. I get what we need to do. I mean, for now all we really _can_ do is just be around each other, right?”

“Right,” Dan says, though he’s nibbling on his bottom lip. “I guess stuff we’d really have to talk about would come after the bond gets going. Like, I dunno. Don’t think there’s a way to block anything out, but we could agree to not really talk about what we feel. Like, pretending we have privacy.”

Dan must notice the horrified look on Phil’s face, because he continues. “But that’s—we can figure out that stuff once it actually happens. It’s not like either of us are exactly experienced. It’s a lot subtler than the exaggerated shit you see on dramas, anyway.”

“Right,” Phil says, twirling his fingers in his lap nervously. The thought of anyone being able to feel what he’s feeling, even if it’s not directly, still makes his skin crawl. “It’s just—weird. It’s weird.”

Dan laughs. “It is. Trust me, like. I’m not happy about this either, you know?”

Phil must be looking downright pathetic, because Dan’s voice is quieter, softer. Like he’s trying to be comforting. “My parents were in a bond. And it wasn’t like telepathy or anything, okay, it really wasn’t. I mean, shit, it’s not like you’re gonna literally be feeling what I’m feeling. And I’m not gonna be able to see what kind of weird porn you’re into, don’t worry.”

Phil’s head snaps up from where he was staring at the ground and he sputters. “I’m not—that’s not why!”

Dan throws his head back and laughs, louder than Phil’s heard from him yet. “Really? That’s what I’d be worried about. You must have some actual dark secrets, then.”

But there’s something else that catches Phil’s attention. “Your parents are bonded? Can you, like, ask them about it? What it’s like?”

“Oh, they. _Were_ bonded. I guess I… maybe could?” Dan rubs the back of his neck and winces. “I dunno, maybe. Don’t get your hopes up.”

Phil tries not to show his disappointment. Dan’s obviously uncomfortable, so he’s not going to push it. It just would’ve been nice, is all. He supposes reading stuff from people on the internet isn’t that much different than hearing it from someone, but he’s never actually met a person in a bond. He’s curious. 

“So,” Phil starts. He picks his mug of hot cocoa back up and realizes it’s gone cold. “Are we going with, like, you coming over in the evening every day? I could go to your place if that’s better, if it isn’t too far, I walk everywhere so it’d have to be—”

“No, here’s good,” Dan interrupts quickly. “God, here’s definitely good. I have flatmates and they’re a bit… anyway, here’s good.”

Phil nods. “‘Kay. We might sort of have to… feel it out, right? Like, I couldn’t find anything that says how much we should be together. It might have to be for longer.”

Dan grins. “Not keen to spend any more time with me than necessary, huh?”

That stuns Phil into silence, because he’s kind of exactly right. Phil just didn’t expect to be called out on it. And he definitely has no idea how the hell to respond.

“Kidding,” Dan says. He picks the marshmallow out from his cocoa and plops it in his mouth. “I’m the same way. I don’t know you, you could be a cannibal. But yeah, you’re right. We’ll just have to see if the symptoms come back.”

Phil realizes with a start that the symptoms really are gone. He’d been so wrapped up in his own head worrying, he didn’t even notice. There’d been a small, illogical part of him that thought maybe, this was all a coincidence. Maybe he’d just been ill. Maybe Dan had been ill too, and mistook it for the feeling of a neglected bond. He’d sounded so convincing yesterday, and Phil fell for it. 

But there’s really no way Phil could deny it now. He feels more resigned, than anything, as the last shred of his hope is blown away.

“Anyway, was that your way of wrapping things up nicely and asking me to leave? Because it’s only been like an hour, but I can if you want.”

Phil blinks. “Oh, no. If we’re gonna do it just in the evening, it should probably for as long as possible, right? A couple hours at least. Maybe you should just leave whenever you’d get home in time to go to sleep when you normally would.”

“Then I’d be leaving here at like 2am. But, yeah, I was definitely thinking more in the couple hours range. You don’t need to entertain me, as long as I’ve got my phone, I’m good.”

Phil thinks this is probably Dan’s signal that the conversation’s been long enough and to leave him alone. “Okay. Um, bathroom’s down that hall. I usually just—sit around on my laptop, I guess. In my room. But maybe I should be out here? I dunno how close it wants us to be.”

Dan snorts. “Whatever’s fine, mate. It’s your place. Closer is probably better, to be safe. Just pretend I’m not here.”

Phil stands up. “Alright. Have fun, I guess.”

He goes to his room to fetch his laptop, but once he’s there, he sits on his bed and lingers. Everything feels a little surreal. He still doesn’t like having someone in his flat, and now Dan’s sitting in his living room doing whatever for the next few hours. Phil’s going to be relaxing and winding down and going about his nightly ritual, and that feels—wrong. Intimate. Much too intimate for someone who he effectively just met yesterday. But he supposes that’s going to be the whole issue with this bond. He should probably start getting used to the feeling sooner rather than later.

He cringes, actually cringes, when he remembers how he’d called Dan a prick. He should probably apologize for that. It’s definitely going to be 1am anxiety fuel either way. Dan’s still a mixed bag, but Phil overreacted. 

He forces himself to get up and head back to the living room before he can start thinking too hard. 

He makes to sit down at his dining table when his stomach rumbles rudely and he realizes he's completely forgotten about dinner. The idea pops into his head and he’s turning around before the more logical side of his brain can stop him, can say _that’s weird, you’re probably going to make him feel even more awkward_ —

“Hey, Dan, did you have dinner?” Phil asks.

Dan practically looks startled that Phil even spoke to him. Maybe he’d been serious about Phil pretending he wasn’t there. “Oh, um. No? No, I haven’t. Which, shit, I guess that’s something I should think about if I’m gonna be over here every night. I—”

“Well, I need to make something for myself,” Phil interrupts, overeager as if to compensate for how his brain is currently screaming at him for not just shutting up and keeping to himself. “You want me to make enough for you?”

Phil doesn’t know what he’s doing, he hardly ever _makes_ dinner, only when he’s run out of frozen shit in the freezer and he’s too burnt out to even deal with answering the door for takeout. The only conclusion he can come to is that he’s either trying to show off, because Dan is in fact stupidly attractive and seems kind of cool and aloof and there’s a weird base part of Phil that just wants to be liked by that type of person. Or, he’s trying to make up for snapping earlier instead of apologizing with words like a normal human being. 

He has a hard time telling which would be worse.

“Really?” Dan asks after a painful moment of silence. He sounds less pleasantly surprised, more disbelieving. “I’m not gonna say no to free food, but like, you don’t have to, I usually eat at an ungodly hour anyway. But you—you would?”

“Sure, why not?” Phil asks, throwing in a shrug and hoping he looks the picture of casual. “Making enough for two people versus one really isn’t that different.”

“Well… alright,” Dan says. He sounds either hesitant or suspicious. “What’re we having?”

“Oh, I guess, um.” Phil mentally scans his cabinets and prays he didn’t just offer to make dinner when he doesn’t actually have any ingredients. “Pasta? I’m seriously not much of a cook, don’t expect much. But I have sauce and garlic and it usually comes out decent.”

“Phil.” Dan puts his phone down and sounds so serious it actually scares Phil for a second. “Drown it in enough garlic and I’ll come in my pants no matter how shitty the rest of it is.”

“I think I’m starting to understand your whole thing is that you really don’t have a brain-to-mouth filter,” Phil muses aloud as he promptly turns back to the kitchen.

“I’m glad we’re getting to know each other,” Dan calls out.

They don’t really talk anymore. Phil doesn’t end up apologizing, they don’t mention anything about their bond, and Phil sees Dan off with a stiff _see you_. But Phil cooks dinner for himself for probably the first time in a month, cooks dinner for another person for definitely the first time in years, and Dan thanks him for making it extra garlicky. Phil’s not sure if he’s just mentally exhausted and doesn’t have the energy to worry anymore, but he turns in for the night thinking maybe. Maybe, this isn’t going to be _that_ bad.

***

It’s been about three weeks and some change since that first night, and Phil has come to realize two things.

For one, it’s much, much easier to slip into this routine than he’d anticipated. The first hour of having Dan over in his space still always feels uncomfortable, invasive, but it usually fades after that. They don’t sit around in complete silence, but Dan entertains himself on his phone and Phil does what he usually does and it doesn’t feel like he’s playing the reluctant host every night. He doesn’t make Dan dinner again, because that would be weird, probably. But there’s one night that Dan mentions he forgot to eat at home and Phil was already planning to make a takeout order and, well. Dan says he’ll give Phil free drinks at the cafe until it’s made up and Phil fully plans to take him up on his offer.

That’s the other thing Phil’s realized. His mum always used to tell him that he had a knack for this sort of thing, to always trust his gut. But now Phil’s starting to doubt everything he thought he knew, because Dan’s sort of decent.

Now it’s less that Phil thinks he’s an ass, and more like he can’t get a read on him. Dan seems almost too open, too willing to make crude jokes and poke fun at Phil in a way that Phil supposes is meant to be teasing but could very well rub Phil the wrong way if he was sensitive. And sometimes it does. Phil wonders if Dan would keep acting like this if Phil was different, if he would stop if Phil got upset and really asked him to. A part of him thinks Dan wouldn’t. That’s the main reason Phil isn’t completely leaning into it, isn’t bantering back and letting down one of the walls he keenly feels between the two of them. 

But even then, he has his moments. His jokes aren’t always at Phil’s expense or referencing the bond that Phil is desperately trying to pretend doesn’t exist. Phil finds himself laughing more than not, and as much as he hates to admit it, as pathetic as it makes him feel, it’s nice. It’s nice to have someone around, to have some interaction with someone that isn’t a cashier or his family. He has friends—he does, he remembers telling Dan sternly, when he’d asked if Phil ever actually leaves the house—but they’re all adults now, Phil included. Adults with jobs and commitments and even families for a few of them, and that usually leads to once-in-a-blue-moon lunches as opposed to the 2am texts and weeknight Domino’s runs he so fondly remembers. 

So Dan is a bit of an enigma, and there’s the whole issue of their bond that Phil’s been conveniently ignoring, but Phil’s come to be a little less terrified. He’s come to think that trying to break the bond doesn’t have to mean that him and Dan can’t be friends while they’re waiting. Friendly acquaintances, at least.

“D’ya think it’ll start soon?” Dan asks one night. They’ve taken to sitting on the same sofa when they do this, because Phil had reasoned it was better safe than sorry, and sitting in a dining room chair while he could be sitting on the sofa didn’t make much sense, anyway. It’s not like they cuddle or anything, but they definitely sit close enough that it feels like Dan is in his bubble. 

Phil’s not as conscious of his slight attraction to Dan as he was on the first night. But sometimes Dan shifts and accidentally brushes against him, and Phil has to make a very focused effort not to flinch.

“What?” Phil asks, absorbed in a video about how taffy is made on his phone. 

“The bond, like. The symptoms aren’t back, so we must be doing something right. So do you think we’ll start to feel each other soon?”

Phil takes a long moment to pause the video, lock his phone, and look over at Dan. He swears that Dan sometimes brings up their bond just to fuck with Phil. Maybe that’s his fault for being so childish, not even wanting to acknowledge it, but it still makes Phil’s jaw clench in irritation. He’d think if you were aware of someone’s sore spot, you’d go out of your way to avoid it, not to poke at it.

But he sees the look on Dan’s face and immediately feels the annoyance whoosh out of him. Dan looks—he doesn’t know what Dan looks like, actually. It’s an expression Phil’s never seen before on him, not even when Dan obviously had a shitty day at work, not even after Phil had snapped at him that first night.

He looks scared. He looks lost. He looks like he wants Phil to answer him, to genuinely tell him what’s going to happen.

Distantly, there’s a voice in Phil’s head. Dan’s voice, something he’d said, something Phil had glossed over because he’d been caught up in his own problems.

_I’m not happy about this either, you know?_

Phil is an idiot. It’s something that’s been said fondly to him by his friends, something giggled as he’d tripped and spilled a milkshake all over Cornelia’s lap, but he’s never felt it down to his bones until this moment.

For not one second in these past weeks had Dan’s feelings entered his mind. Maybe in relation to Phil, wondering if Dan would really want to break their bond. A strange, ugly part of him had started fearing that Dan wouldn’t, that Phil would be so charming and fun that Dan would be happy to be stuck with him. 

He doesn’t know much about Dan. But he knows he’s younger than Phil, has flatmates he doesn’t like, works at a cafe that surely can’t pay decently. He was more knowledgeable than Phil about bonds and he’d seemed a bit nonchalant about it all, but—why wouldn’t he be scared of something this serious? Why hasn’t Phil ever thought to talk to him?

Dan’s been comforting him, Phil realizes with another stab of guilt, in his own fumbling way. Phil hasn’t exactly been shy about his discomfort with this whole thing, and Dan’s been—god, he’s been cracking jokes, trying to lighten the mood. That’s probably just the type of person Dan is, the type that uses humor to deal with everything. And Phil’s been assuming the worst of him.

Dan seems to be unaware of Phil’s world imploding, and nudges his thigh with his foot. “Anyone there?”

“Oh.” Phil’s head snaps up and for a moment he panics, forgets what Dan asked and what he was supposed to say and that Dan can’t actually see into his head and know what he’d been thinking for the past minute. “I, well. Maybe? The internet said anywhere between a week and several months, which was super helpful.”

Dan hums and grabs his own knee. Phil watches silently as Dan strokes a thumb back and forth along his skin, like he’s unconsciously trying to soothe himself. “I wonder what it’s gonna be like.”

It’s a statement, not a question, but Phil feels like he needs to respond anyway. “Me too. Do you… I mean. Are you worried?”

Dan glances up at him for a second before looking back to the floor. “I dunno. More like, scared? In a very general sense? Because when I think specifically, like okay, what’re you so worried about, I’m fine. Like, so you’ll feel shit when my emotions get too strong—so fucking what? So we can’t go too long without seeing each other—so we just keep doing like we’ve been doing.”

Dan pauses and swallows, but Phil just sits there, waits for him to continue. “But when I don’t think of it in parts like that, when I just let myself lay in bed and feel it, I just… yeah, I dunno. It’s a lot, isn’t it?”

This is probably the only serious conversation Phil’s had with Dan. Or, not serious, necessarily, because that first night had been pretty serious too, and the first day when Phil had strolled into the cafe completely oblivious. But those had been different, somehow. Both their words had been steeped in cynicism, laced with sarcasm and defensiveness and the bite of so obviously trying to scope each other out, trying to find out how hard this stranger was going to make their lives.

This is the first time he’s seen Dan vulnerable, he realizes.

“It is a lot,” Phil agrees carefully. “Definitely. I’ve been kind of just screaming internally for these past few weeks, as you’ve probably noticed.”

That gets a grin out of Dan, and Phil feels a prickle of pride. “Yeah, you’re not exactly great at hiding your stress, mate.”

“What did you think about bonds, before this happened?” Phil asks, just to ask, just to keep talking.

“Um… hm.” Dan unfolds his legs from underneath him, opens up from how he’d been curled in on himself a bit. “Well, my parents were bonded, I think I told you.”

“Yeah.”

“They hated it. Well, I dunno if they hated the bond, or if it was just one more issue between them. Or like, what came first, if the bond caused the issues or if the issues are what made them hate the bond, you get the idea.”

“Oh,” Phil says quietly. He wants to say he’s sorry, but then he remembers how a friend he had used to hate when people said they were sorry after her parents split, and suddenly Phil wishes he’d thought to Google _how to comfort someone_ at least once in his life.

“Anyway, so obviously I knew bonds weren’t, like. Some fairytale thing. But I still… shit, I dunno.” Dan reaches over and shoves Phil’s shoulder and Phil yelps weakly. “My brain is all mush, I only slept like three hours last night, don’t talk to me.”

“You don’t need to attack me!” Phil laughs.

“I think I do. Listening to me all attentive and shit.” Dan glares at him with no venom. “Making me ramble on about shit no one wants to hear. What about you, huh? What’d you think of them?”

Phil surprises himself by how easily he tells the truth. “They creeped me out. I think I’m like, more private than most? Feels weird saying that about myself, but like. I can’t believe people would be happy about it, would _want_ it. To have someone able to feel their emotions. I mean, I get it’s not literally feeling them, but I think it’d still be obvious. And that’s so… intimate, isn’t it? Intimate in a bad way, too much. Or—or maybe yeah, I’m just too private.”

“Nah, I think that’s pretty normal,” Dan says. “I mean… maybe if there was a way to block it out, to turn it off if you ever really wanted to be alone, it could be nice. But I think the people that live with it and enjoy it are the weird ones.”

“Probably,” Phil says. There’s a lull of silence and Phil thinks the conversation has run its course, but Dan starts up again.

“Well. I guess I can kinda see where the appeal comes from? People don’t think about it realistically, probably. And sure there’s the shitty side, and it’s not like it is in the movies and books, but like. There’re people that are fine with it too, actual real life people. And enough of them where it must not be _too_ too bad.”

“Wonder how many of those people are in our situation, though,” Phil says, and his voice is coming out approximately three times more derisive than he intends. “I’m pretty sure people happy with it would be people that actually like each other.”

And that’s—not what Phil meant to say. Or, he’s not sure what he wanted to say exactly, but he knows he isn’t _trying_ to be a dick with Dan. It just… keeps happening, for some reason, and now he basically just told Dan to his face that he doesn’t like him. That’s the kind of person he is now, apparently. 

And Phil’s pretty sure that it isn’t even true anymore.

But by some grace of forgiveness that Phil probably doesn’t deserve, Dan doesn’t look upset. In fact, he laughs as if Phil just told a joke. “Snarky. I know that, you knob. I’m not talking about us liking it, I just mean, as a general thing. With the right person it could be surprisingly fine.”

Phil wrinkles his nose. “You have fun with that. I’m keeping my unrealistic romantic fantasies limited to a normal fit guy barging into my life and sweeping me off my feet, thanks.”

“That’s your type? Fit? That’s so boring, jesus, live a little. You’re such a normie.”

“I am not! Just because something’s popular doesn’t mean it’s bad, you… you edgelord.”

“That’s completely true. You just have normal old shit taste. It’s okay, I accepted it the moment I walked in here and saw that awful artichoke looking—is that a statue? Like, literally what is it, and why the fuck is it on your coffee table? I wanted to ask the first night but you were so tightly wound I thought you might kill me.”

Phil bickers back and forth with Dan for nearly the rest of the night. Longer than the rest of the night, actually, because Dan’s head snaps up with an _oh shit_ and they realize Dan somehow ended up staying two hours longer than their usual time. And, it wasn’t necessarily bickering. It was more like banter, with a good deal of teasing, and Phil wonders if this is the exact type of thing that even just a week ago would’ve soured his mood. 

Because Dan actually doesn’t seem any different than he has been, minus the unusually honest conversation they’d had. Maybe Phil’s just changing. Maybe he’s just realizing he’s been kind of unfair and weird and probably was making this all a whole lot harder than it needed to be.

There had been a part of him that’d wanted Dan to be terrible. That would’ve been easier. He’s not sure how to navigate this now, having someone in his home and his life and soon apparently his head or something. Someone who’s actually pretty okay. Okay and funny and caring in the quietest of ways and also, kind of hot. Phil really hopes that isn’t going to come and bite him in the ass someday.

It’s not that he thinks he’s going to fall in love with the guy, but. The last few years of his life, Phil’s been alone. Not completely—he tries to go out once a day even if just for a walk, he ends up texting Bryony or Martyn or someone pretty often, he’s tried dating apps and sites and has had a few one-off things. But at the very least, he hasn’t led the sort of life where he’s spent his nights laughing like he has lately. 

He’s not worried about getting his heart broken or anything as dramatic as that. It’s just that it’s going to be a weird adjustment, going back to the lull of his everyday life after this is over.

***

It happens sooner rather than later. In fact, it happens just a week or two after their conversation.

Phil had pictured it going one of two ways. He’d wake up one morning, suddenly aware that his mind was being violently invaded by an outsider. (Which, okay. Contradicted nearly everything he’d learned about bonds in his life, but there was still an irrational part of his mind sulking in the corner.) Or, Dan would be over and they’d both feel a shock, and they’d look over at each other in wonder and awe.

It actually happens some time after noon on a Saturday when Phil’s alone, lying in bed watching Netflix on his laptop and drumming on his stomach just because it’s fun.

It isn’t exactly a shock, either. At least not as dramatic as he’d pictured. It’s a rush of pinpricks down his left shoulder to his elbow, as if he’d had it in a bad position and his arm had fallen asleep. It leaves him unusually warm, but he shifts his arm and doesn’t think much of it.

Except. Except, there’s something different. His body seems to process it before his mind can. His heart stutters in that familiar unpleasant way. For a second, it feels like his whole body is overtaken over with dread, his entire existence squeezed into this one, horrifying moment that he still doesn’t understand.

It fades as quickly as it came, but Phil’s already sitting up, hands gripping the duvet. It takes him two deep breaths and a dry swallow to realize, oh.

It happened. Dan’s here.

Here, as in… Phil’s not sure. It’s not telepathy, it’s not. He’d spend probably much longer than necessary confirming that. Dan isn’t literally in his mind, he’s not reading his thoughts. But something just feels—

Phil remembers a period of time when he was younger, maybe around ten to eleven, where he’d had a strange fear of the quietness that came around after supper. The stillness after the dishes were washed and nobody was watching the telly and Martyn had gone to his room, and Phil’s mum would sit on the sofa and start trying to read a novel. It’d be dark out but not late enough for bed, and the single lamp they had in the dining room would bathe the room in a soft glow. Bright enough to see, but dim enough for the world to get a little blurry around the edges.

Phil would curl up next to his mum and she’d pet his hair, laugh gently at him for being so clingy. She never asked what was wrong and Phil never told her. He probably wouldn’t have been able to explain to her how he just felt scared. Scared like something bad was about to happen, like things were too peaceful and some monster was going to come bursting through their front door at any moment. Like it was observing him from somewhere, even though it never actually attacked, even though he’d sometimes peek out the windows only to find nothing.

It isn’t as intense as it was back then, but Phil really had never thought he’d feel it again. 

Phil stands up, just because. It’s okay. Thing are going to be okay, even though it really doesn’t feel like it now, even though he can’t imagine ever getting used to this. The feeling is stronger at the beginning, that’s what everything says. It’s going to fade away. It’s going to feel less like Dan’s watching him, more like he’s simply there. A comforting presence, people say. Like the peace of mind of knowing that your partner’s there and alive and connected, that you’re not alone, no matter what, whether Phil wants to be or not—

So, it’s pretty bad. He knew that. He’d been expecting that. This is why they’re going to try and break it. Because it’s something neither of them want, Dan agrees with him. He isn’t going to be stuck, he doesn’t have to live with this, this is only temporary.

Right. He breathes in, breathes out.

Right.

Phil’s down at the cafe before he can even really think twice about it. He could’ve just texted Dan, like he was a normal person with his shit under control. He’s better now, but it had still felt like he should see Dan in person.

He pushes open the door, and—frankly, expects something a little more dramatic than what he gets.

There’s someone in there already, and Phil had expected to get Dan alone, but he supposes a cafe does actually need to have customers if it stays in business. The owner (Irene, Phil’s learned) is the one working the counter, and Dan’s got his back turned, mixing a drink.

He’s not exactly sure what to do, so he stands in line. Dan does eventually turn around, and they make eye contact, and. That’s it. Dan’s expression doesn’t even change, he just hands the drink off to the person that’d been waiting for it.

Phil makes it to the counter in utter confusion.

“Oh,” Irene says, which Phil really doesn’t know how to interpret. She turns around to face Dan, who looks to be taking off his apron in the kitchen. “Dan?”

“One second,” Dan says. Phil hears the chime of the bell attached to the door as the other person leaves. “It’s okay if I go on break, right?”

“No, but you’re going to anyway, so go on.” She turns to Phil with a smile. “Awful one, that lad. Sorry you have to put up with him.”

Before Phil can respond, Dan’s sauntering out and clasping a hand on Phil’s shoulder. “Hey, soulmate. Guess we’re official. How’s my mind feel, good?” He starts dragging Phil back towards the kitchen. “We haven’t even made it to the third date, you lucky shit.”

Phil probably shouldn’t have expected anything else.

***

“I’m not saying I’m not weirded out. It’s just… I’ve had, you know. The past month or however long it’s been to prepare.”

They’re sat at a table in a small, dingy break room that was at the back of the kitchen. Phil’s bouncing his leg up and down, arms crossed. Dan looks like they’re discussing the weather.

“I mean, yeah,” Phil insists. “But wasn’t it still. Intense? Like, I was in bed and it just hit me. I thought I was dying.”

Dan has the audacity to laugh, and Phil isn’t annoyed so much as he’s in disbelief at how casual Dan’s being. “The first minute was pretty crazy, yeah. Like… I dunno how to describe it, but it suddenly felt like you were just there, you know?”

“Exactly! Which, like, shit, that’s crazy, what—”

“Mate,” Dan says, and leans over closer. He speaks slowly, like he’s trying to calm down a toddler. “Deep breath. It’s fine. I was pretty worried there for a second too, yeah. But I realized if I’m not able to, like, dive into your mind and steal all your secrets. You’re probably not able to get into mine.”

“That’s…”

That’s actually a fair point. Phil had been so caught up in how it felt for him, he hadn’t been paying attention to what exactly he was feeling from Dan. He hasn’t actually been able to feel anything really, besides possibly that thing in his arm at the start. And—though logically he already knew it wouldn’t happen—there were no thoughts coming through, no telepathic communication happening.

Phil frowns. “Aren’t we supposed to be feeling something, though? Besides, like. Being watched.”

“Think it’s still too soon,” Dan says. “It’s literally been what, an hour? I dunno, I’m not an expert either. But also, it’s not gonna be like… you feel a punch in the gut whenever I’m sad. Please tell me you realize that.”

“I know,” Phil says, sounding only slightly petulant. He shifts in his chair, uncrosses his arms and sighs. “I know. I just—yeah. It really happened. Thought maybe it’d take longer. It’s weird.”

“Hey, the sooner it happens, the sooner we can break it,” Dan says, and Phil has very conflicting feelings of being comforted but also hating that Dan’s so calm and collected while Phil’s a mess. “Or, well. Not that there’s a whole lot we can do. But still, it should happen eventually, I—I think.”

And there’s a lot Phil could get into right then. He could bring up the possibility of it not breaking. He could ask what if it takes years, what if this isn’t just a little bump in the road, what if their entire lives have to revolve around this for a while. 

But, he’s tired. So he doesn’t.

“Alright,” Phil says. “Yeah, you’re right. I… sorry I came down here, by the way. I was just worried, I guess. Probably should’ve texted.”

Dan shakes his head. “It’s fine. It’s not like we’re exactly busy. And, like, it’s not like I’m bothered just by talking to you.”

“Oh. Thanks,” Phil says, which is probably stupid. “I. I guess I’ll be off then?”

He’s not sure why he makes it a question. But Dan nods anyway, and stands up. “Okay. I’ll see you out. If Irene shoots you a sleazy grin on the way out, ignore her. She’s been teasing me about this literally the entire time.”

“So you told her about us, huh?” Phil asks as they walk. It comes as a surprise, for some reason. It’s not like they agreed to keep it a secret. But Phil hasn’t even told his mum, and that’s definitely weird. He tells his mum everything.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry? It’s impossible to keep anything from her, I come into work and just start running my mouth about everything, it’s honestly sad. She’s kinda like my only friend in this dark cruel world.”

They’re stood at the doorway now. For some reason Phil lingers back, like he doesn’t want to stop talking. His brain also takes this moment to note the fact that Dan is actually a bit taller than him. Which is rare. And, apparently, enough to make something pleasant fizzle in the pit of his stomach. He really wishes he could tell himself that now is not the time.

“And here I thought we were soulmates,” Phil says. And he hadn’t realized it himself, but if he’s here joking around, he must be feeling at least a little better. “But you don’t even consider us friends. I’m hurt.”

“I. I didn’t… I mean—”

“I’m kidding, Dan, jeez,” Phil says with a chuckle. “Anyway. Usual time tonight?”

Phil’s not sure what he keeps saying that’s so surprising, but Dan looks at him blankly again. “Oh, do you—you want me to? I thought maybe since we saw each other here, it wouldn’t be necessary.”

That’s probably a hint from Dan. He’s probably trying to politely refuse, to say there’s really no reason for them to be together longer than they have to. But Phil’s brain is running a bit slowly, and he doesn’t quite catch that. “Nah, what? Just come over. Unless you have something to do.” 

Dan almost looks relieved, though Phil’s not sure why he would be. “With the exception of, like, an appointment or two a month. If the question is if I have something to do, the answer’s always no.”

That makes Phil smile. “That’s hard to believe, honestly. You seem like the type that—I dunno. Not like me.”

“That’s meant to be a good thing, right? I have literally no idea how you’ve gotten the impression that I’m not a loser, but good to know.”

Phil pauses for a moment. “Wait, does that work out to you indirectly calling me a loser? I wasn’t being _that_ self-deprecating. But also, don’t say that. You seem to be doing pretty well for yourself.”

Dan shoots him a withering look. “Uh-huh. Barely making rent every month, living with two flatmates that definitely want me gone but luckily feel too bad to kick me out, no degree or plan for the future if this place closes. I’m really living it up.”

“Well,” Phil fumbles a bit, “that doesn’t have to say anything about you. It means your situation is shitty, but like. It doesn’t mean you’re a loser. Even if you ended up like that because you were lazy or failed at something or whatever, like. Things could still change, eventually.”

Phil remembers back in uni, when he was really making a conscious effort to be friendly and put himself out there, there was a complaint he’d heard from multiple people. That Phil was a nice guy, but he’d take it too far. He’d give advice when it wasn’t needed, always thought his way was the right way, sometimes even seemed a little patronizing. He wasn’t their mum, they could take care of themselves, they didn’t need Phil reminding them to drink some water before they all went out.

Phil has gotten closer to Dan over these past few weeks, but Phil is definitely, massively overstepping his boundaries right now.

Dan just looks at him silently and Phil nearly apologizes right there. Dan even frowns a little, but then he shifts his weight to his other side and glances away.

“Not sure what I’ve done to have you assume the best of me,” Dan mumbles. “But thanks, I think.”

“Um. Yeah,” Phil says, and for a moment, he thinks he’s starting to feel something through the bond. Because something warm prickles in his chest and he feels a split second burst of giddiness, but he realizes that’s probably just him. Probably just him reacting to the way Dan looks sheepish, the way that spot on his jaw is starting to go red, and Phil feels a weird sort of pride at himself being the cause of that in someone like Dan.

Or he’s not entirely sure if it’s someone like Dan, or Dan, specifically. He chooses not to think too hard about it.

There’s a clang of something dropping, probably from Irene cleaning one of the tables towards the back, and Phil snaps out of whatever he was in. Dan straightens up and clears his throat and they both just look at each other for a second.

“I’ll be off,” Phil forces himself to say. “You just—yeah, I’ll see you tonight.”

“Okay,” Dan says. He opens the door and holds it there, and Phil wants to laugh because people don’t really hold doors open for Phil, that’s not really a thing that happens. 

Instead he just ducks his head and walks out, and turns around to give Dan a small wave before he walks away. Dan waves back through the glass of the door and Phil makes his way back to his flat thinking about how his life is really quite weird at the moment.

***

Dan comes over later, and it’s definitely awkward.

It’s nowhere near as bad as it was earlier, but Phil’s good mood after seeing Dan didn’t last long. It just kept coming back that what he’d been dreading so much has finally happened. And though he’s not stressing about anything in particular, it’s left him feeling off-kilter. He’d spent so long coming to terms with the bond in his mind, it’s almost like he didn’t anticipate what to do when the time actually came.

Dan seems to be feeling off too, a big change from his attitude at the cafe. But he’s going in a different direction than Phil. While Phil’s silently fretting and barely talking, Dan’s more energetic than Phil’s seen him so far. He keeps trying to make conversation even though Phil just gives one-words replies, and he gets up and moves around the room for no particular reason. Phil feels bad because he’s obviously making this uncomfortable for both of them, but he just doesn’t know what to say.

“You know,” Dan pipes up, “we should go somewhere sometime.” 

Phil looks up at him, momentarily distracted from trying to focus to see if he feels anything from the bond. “Huh?”

Dan’s standing over by one of the kitchen counters, mindlessly playing with the pineapple-shaped salt shaker Phil has. “Seeing each other doesn’t have to mean that I literally just come here and sit around. Like, we could—I dunno, shit. Anything, really.”

“I guess,” Phil says. “I just didn’t think… I didn’t think you’d really want to do anything?”

“Usually, yeah,” Dan scoffs. He comes over and plops down right next to Phil on the sofa. “And no reason to, either. But like, I just realized. This is like a special day, isn’t it? Well, special in a bad way. We should like—go out to eat or something, shouldn’t we?”

Phil looks at Dan and hopes he conveys his disbelief. “Really? You want to go eat dinner, with me? To celebrate our bond finally settling? Our bond that neither of us actually want?”

“Don’t sound so grim,” Dan laughs, knocking against Phil’s shoulder. “Also, not sure why you emphasized the _with me_ part. You’re pretty alright. Anyway, not celebrating. Just… shut up, I’m hungry.”

Phil stares at him. At this point, Phil has enough experience with him to tell that he’s not as carefree as he’s trying to seem. There’s a nervous energy about him, in the way his voice pitches up and he can’t seem to sit still and his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. Phil’s not sure why Dan’s pretending to be fine if he isn’t fine. God knows, Phil never has any trouble showing Dan how stressed he is himself. 

But it just makes him think—if Dan wants to go eat dinner, they should go eat dinner. If that would calm him down, unfurl the tightly wound bundle of nerves he seems to be in, then it’s a small price. He doesn’t like seeing Dan so obviously distressed.

And it’s not like it’s a terrible idea anyway. It would be nice, when Phil thinks about it. It would probably relax Phil too, and maybe they could actually talk about what they’re going to do next.

“You know what, okay. Sure. Let’s go out to eat. If—you are serious, right?”

“Yes, Phil, I’m serious. But also broke. That’s gonna really limit our options, sorry.”

***

They end up sitting in a booth in the back of a slightly shitty restaurant a block or two away. It’s not exactly the type of place for a _special day_ , as Dan had said, but it was basically the only place that was still open this late and looked cheap enough.

Dan’s mindlessly stirring the glass of water in front of him. He’d been talkative on the walk over, like how he was back at the flat, but now all the jittery energy seems to be zapped out of him. Now, he’s more like Phil was. He’s quiet, spacing out, not even looking Phil in the eye.

Phil, on the other hand—he’s not fine, necessarily. But he’d had a long time to think on the way over, and maybe the fresh air had done him some good. 

Phil’s had a month to get used to the idea of a bond, and now the time has come. That’s it. And all things considered, the circumstances aren’t that bad. Phil’s not a cynic, he doesn’t believe that most people are horrible or anything as extreme as that. But there’s a lot of mildly shitty people out there. He thinks if he absolutely had to bond with someone, if there’s some higher power out there that really just had it out for Phil—he probably got quite lucky, having that someone be Dan.

So there’s no real reason they should be sitting here like this, both of them suffering silently. Phil’s lived twenty-seven years on this Earth, he should be able to communicate by now.

So he does. “Dan. I think we should… talk.”

Dan glances up at him and smiles, though it looks more like a grimace. “Ah, that’s not the most ominous thing I’ve ever heard or anything, don’t worry.”

“Shut up,” Phil says. “You know what I mean. And I think back towards the beginning, we literally said that we’d need to talk more once everything got settled. I’m not… entirely sure about what? But yeah.”

Dan snorts, but then shifts in his seat and sighs. “I know. I know. I’m just, like. I don’t know, actually.”

“Alright,” Phil says, because he’s not quite sure what else to say. “Um. Are you… upset, you mean?”

Dan legitimately laughs at that, but he interrupts himself by grabbing his burrito and taking a bite. Phil waits silently for him to chew and swallow.

Dan blows out a huff of air. “I’m kinda fucked up right now? I—back at the cafe, I was, I dunno. Distracted by work. But then I got back to my place before I went over to yours and I took a shower and, just, like, everything sorta. Wow. Shit. At your flat, I was trying to… keep it together, I guess, but then on the way over I sorta got lost in my mind and—”

Dan sounds frantic. Phil tries to distract himself from how awkward he’s starting to feel by stirring his soup. Phil had his crisis earlier, now it’s Dan’s turn, apparently. Phil had wanted to talk, but when it comes to comforting he somehow always says the wrong thing, either too little or too much in the wrong direction. He probably should’ve thought of that before he initiated the conversation.

For better or for worse, Dan continues on. His eyebrows are knitted together and his mouth is twisted in this little downturned curve and he looks—young, is the first thing that comes to Phil’s mind. “It’s like. I can’t leave even if I wanted to. I, I mean, not literally. I _could_. But if enough time passes and we don’t see each other, that headache and all that shit comes back, doesn’t it? I can’t just like, ghost you or anything.”

Phil takes a sip of his water. That’s… true, definitely. And it’s not like it never crossed Phil’s mind. But Phil’s worries have so far leaned heavily towards the immediate effects of the bond. Perhaps surprisingly, he hasn’t given much thought to the separation effects.

“Well, right, I’d hope you wouldn’t, for both our sakes—”

“The funny thing is, you’re not even that bad. Not even that, shit, I’ve been—it’s been fun, you know? Lately. So it’s not that I think I’m gonna start hating you and be stuck. It’s just… the fact that even if I did, tough shit. It’s the principle of it, I guess.”

Phil looks up once a long moment has passed and Dan hasn’t continued. Dan’s staring at something on the wall, arms crossed, breathing hard. His face is flushed, but it doesn’t bring any pleasant fuzzies to Phil’s chest like it has before.

“I’m… not sure what to tell you,” Phil says honestly. “Except that I get where you’re coming from. And you’re right, really. I don’t want to lie to try and make you feel better.”

“I’m not looking for a pity party,” Dan says, closer to real irritation than Phil’s ever heard from him. “You don’t need to comfort me.”

“I know,” Phil says, and looks back down at his bowl. “I just… wish there was something that would make it better. For both of us.”

Silence stretches on for at least a full minute. Phil’s not sure if he fucked up, by bringing it up in the first place. But it probably would’ve had to come up eventually. 

“Hey,” Dan says, and Phil snaps to attention. Dan’s still got his arms crossed, still looks defensive, but there’s something different about his face. “How’ve you been with it, then? I didn’t even think to ask.”

The softness in Dan’s voice takes him by surprise, and for a moment they just look at each other. “Oh, I. Well. I guess, when I think about it, it’s more about the principle of it for me too. It’s not really a concrete _oh fuck, he can tell if I’m mad_ or whatever. It’s just the fact that I couldn’t keep it to myself even if I wanted.”

Dan finally unfolds from himself a little. He takes a concerningly large bite of his burrito, wipes his mouth with a napkin, and sits up straight.

“God, fuck this,” he announces loudly. Phil whips around to make sure there’s no innocent toddlers passing through.

“Um, agreed, I guess?”

“This should not be fucking us up as much as it is. Or, uh. I guess it is some pretty serious shit. But like—we’re both on the same page here. We both seem normal. We’re not gonna fuck each other over or anything, I don’t think. So, probably, hopefully… it isn’t as bad as we’re thinking it’s gonna be.”

Phil smiles. “Pretty big change there from like, five minutes ago.”

Dan purses his lips. “Shut up. I’m trying to be logical. And make you feel better. Not fair that you should always be the one dealing with my shit, and not the other way around.”

It takes Phil a moment to process that, because it doesn’t exactly make sense. With how touchy about the bond Phil had been early on, if anything Dan is the one that’s had to deal with Phil’s shit. 

But, as usual Phil can’t think of a response, so he goes with nothing.

The conversation stops after that, and they eat their meals in silence. Dan seems to be feeling a little better, at least, since he nudges Phil’s leg with his foot and grins once the waitress starts giving them the stink eye.

They leave with Phil feeling like he maybe did some good, and that’s enough for him.

***

“I can’t believe you tried to pay for me, you absolute freak.”

“Sorry I was trying to be nice,” Phil grumbles. “It just… felt like I should. And you could’ve made it up to me by making me extra fancy drinks when I go to the cafe or something.”

“You barely ever come to the cafe anyway. I’m not looking for a sugar daddy, sorry.”

“Oi, I’m not old enough to be a sugar daddy! I would be… a sugar cousin, at the most.”

“That’s. Possibly weirder? I’ll get back to you on that.”

They didn’t say anything about Dan walking Phil back to his flat, but that’s apparently what’s happening. Phil doesn’t actually know where Dan lives, but surely it’s not on the exact same route that Phil’s place is.

They walk quietly for a while, hands stuffed in the pockets of their jackets, their breath fogging in the air.

“I guess, when I think about it,” Dan starts once they’re a couple minutes away. “I don’t really have to be over here every day.”

Phil feels something go _clunk_ , right in the hollow of his chest. “What?”

“The constant contact thing, that’s—that was just while the bond was getting settled. So I’m pretty sure now that it is, it doesn’t have to be that often.”

It feels like an eternity passes as Phil tries to both process what Dan’s saying, and process why it makes him feel as bad as it does. 

Obviously. _Obviously_ , this was temporary. This is what he’s been waiting for. This is what he’d remind himself of for comfort, weeks ago, when he’d start feeling bitter about having to put up with a guy he didn’t particularly like invading his personal space. 

It’s just—at some point, Dan stopped being that guy. Having Dan over stopped feeling like an obligation, like something Phil was forced to do because of their circumstances. 

But Dan and him aren’t buddies that hang out after work together every day for fun, they’re two people caught in a bond that would render them dysfunctional if they were apart for too long.

“But we probably still shouldn’t go too long,” Dan continues. “Right? Especially with how new it is, we don’t know how it’ll react, or—or anything. We should probably still keep it pretty regular, like every other day, or a couple days a week. Shouldn’t we?”

It almost sounds like Dan doesn’t want to stop, even though he’s the one that brought it up. And for a moment, Phil wants to crack a joke. That it’s okay, they don’t have to pretend like they both don’t like each other, they can be friends while they try to break the bond, if they’re both lonely saps that like having the human contact every day, they shouldn’t deprive themselves of it just on principle.

Except suddenly, Phil’s not sure. And if he’s wrong, if Dan only comes over because he has to and is counting down the days until Phil’s out of his hair, he’d make a complete idiot of himself. 

“Oh. Um, yeah, yeah,” Phil says. “Definitely. At least for a while. Probably, I guess… well, what would work for you? What would you want?”

He doesn’t say _Any days you want to come over are fine with me because I have nothing going on in my life_ , even though it’s true.

“Uh…” Dan nibbles on his bottom lip. “Can I text you about it? I just—to confirm my schedule, and to look at the calendar, and you know—”

“Of course, yeah, that’s fine. Just let me know, yeah.”

Phil feels supremely awkward and he can’t tell if it’s just him. His brain is already telling him he fucked up somehow, somewhere along the lines of this day, from when he went and saw Dan down at his work until now. He’s pretty sure he didn’t, but he’s also gotten skilled over the years at predicting what nights are going to be _kept up until 3am overthinking_ nights.

Both of them are silent as they walk the rest of the way back to Phil’s flat, and that doesn’t help at all. 

When they get to the front of the building, Phil pauses and turns to say goodbye. But something in Dan’s face stops him in his tracks. Dan looks nervous for some reason, scratching at the side of his neck, a slight frown on his face. Before Phil can even ask if something’s wrong, Dan takes in a shuddering breath and steps closer.

“I know I can kind of be… a lot,” Dan says, looking off to the side.

Phil stares at him.

“Like, I’m pretty bad at reading, you know. What’s too far. Or more like, when’s a good time to say shit and when I should be all serious. I’m too focused on myself and how I feel, I either never think to ask how anyone else is or I feel too self-conscious to. I get into bad moods and I snap at people for literally no reason. I’m just… a handful to deal with, basically.”

He finally meets Phil’s eyes. “But, we’re literally stuck together, at least for a while. So, sorry. About—I dunno, I was shitty at first, and I’m still kinda shitty now. I was gonna say this a long time ago, practised it and all, but I haven’t. And, I’m gonna try and make this whole thing not too painful. So, yeah.”

In that moment, Phil feels like he floats away from his body. He floats away to somewhere up in the sky, where he piles up the fluff of the clouds into a makeshift chair and takes a seat as the last month of his life plays out in front of him.

Phil sporting a splitting headache one evening after going back and forth with an unreasonable client all day, and how genuine Dan’s voice had sounded when he’d asked if Phil was alright.

Phil taking a call from his mum and not bothering to move even though he was sitting right next to Dan.

Dan seemingly unable to shut up one day about the shitty customers he’d dealt with at work, and instead of getting annoyed or tuning him out, Phil just sitting there and listening and saying it sounds like they need more excitement in their lives.

Dan wide-eyed and vulnerable as he asks Phil what he thinks the bond’s going to feel like.

Phil’s been doing fine. He didn’t like Dan at first, he can admit that. There’s a variety of reasons he could consider, from his stress warping his perception of Dan’s actions to Dan just genuinely being an abrasive person at first.

But it doesn’t matter. Things are better now. 

He’d assumed Dan knew that. He’d thought Dan would just—see the change in his behavior, would see how Phil welcomes him so easily into his home, how often he laughs and how open he’s been about his fears about the bond. Would understand how rare that is.

“Dan, no,” he’s saying before he can even plan what to say, before he can overthink himself out of it. “No, no, god—no.”

He steps forward, puts a hand on Dan’s shoulder, and squeezes. Phil doesn’t consider himself particularly soft on people, particularly affectionate or doting or weak to cute things. But Dan just looks—pathetic, standing there with his eyes cast down, his scarf wrapped snugly around him, his cheeks blushed pink from the cold. And Phil just fiercely wants to make it better.

“I like you, okay? We’re friends now. Whether you like it or not. It doesn’t bother me having you over to my place, I like hanging out with you. I’ve been having fun. Don’t worry about it, stop thinking. I don’t _deal_ with you, I don’t do anything.”

Phil’s not sure what reaction Dan was anticipating to his show of an apology, but judging by his wide eyes, it definitely wasn’t whatever it is that Phil’s doing.

“We’re in a shitty situation,” Phil continues on, still emboldened by the desire to make sure Dan leaves here knowing without a shadow of a doubt that he’s liked. “A shitty situation, that we were thrust into, and it’s totally unfair. But it’s a shitty situation and we’re in it together and we’ll handle it. Yeah? Don’t, like—apologize for yourself. There’s no need.” 

Dan breaks eye contact after several beats of silence. He looks off to the side, scuffs one of his shoes on the pavement. 

“Whether I like it or not, huh?” he asks after a moment, glancing back to Phil and giving him a wry smile.

“Yep,” Phil says. “Sorry, I don’t make the rules.”

Dan sighs and rolls his shoulder, making a horrible joint cracking noise that makes Phil cringe. “Fine then, if you want it so badly. Anyway, I need to get back to my place. I can’t spend the whole night keeping you company.”

“Alright,” Phil says. He thinks Dan might be embarrassed, but because he’s a good person, he doesn’t tease like Dan probably would’ve if things were reversed. 

He sees Dan off with a wave. When Dan is almost around the corner, he peeks back over his shoulder, and Phil waves again.

***

Phil feels Dan, really feels him, starting the next morning.

He’s pouring himself a bowl of cereal when he feels it. A pull down low in his gut, shooting through him ice cold and slightly nauseating. It fades as quickly as it came, leaving him shocked still and wondering if he ate something spoiled last night.

He doesn’t recognize it as the bond until it happens twice more. They’re different sensations, but they too come and go within a few seconds.

He expects himself to be a lot more distressed than he is. Or, really, he isn’t very distressed at all. Maybe he’d exhausted himself the morning before when he’d had a crisis over Dan and him finally being connected. Which still feels a bit unsettling, though not as sinister as it did for that first hour or so.

He’s surprisingly calm about the whole thing. In a way it’s a relief, to finally experience it firsthand, with the month build-up of research. At least now he knows it isn’t so intense that he’ll be unable to function.

He exchanges a series of texts with Dan confirming that he feels it too, asks if he’s doing alright, and they both apparently go about their days.

There’s a lot less theatrics than Phil had anticipated.

Dan gets back to him later that night about meeting up, and they agree to meet Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. Phil answers an email from a potential client. He calls his mum because he hasn’t for a while and assures her that he’s eating properly. He tells himself he’ll watch two episodes of a show before he sleeps and ends up watching six.

Life, one way or another, goes on.

The first couple times he sees Dan again, not much is different. After his dramatic speech Phil had partly imagined something changing between them, some sort of shift in their dynamic. Dan seems possibly a little more comfortable—on Wednesday Dan forgoes his usual text letting Phil know he’s on his way, and instead just rapidfire rings Phil’s doorbell—but that’s about it.

They don’t even talk much about the bond, really. Phil’s not sure how bad that is.

“I’m so bored,” Dan groans one night. He throws down the Wii remote that Phil’s kindly been letting him use to the floor. 

“You know, you used to come over here and literally just sit around on your phone. Not sure when you got so spoiled.”

“Yeah, well. I was fucking nervous back then. Now I know you’re not a serial killer.”

Phil snorts. “ _You_ were nervous? Please. I got like three hours of sleep for the first week, don’t test me. But also, I’m flattered you think I’m even physically capable of being a serial killer.”

“Yeah, at this point I know you’d probably trip over your own feet or start crying or something. But it would’ve made perfect sense! Like, you’d want to break the bond so bad, you’d take it into your own hands… and break my spine instead.”

“How… what are you even picturing, how in god’s name would I break someone’s spine—”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Dan says suddenly, sitting up straight. “Did you feel anything from the bond, around like… midnight?”

Phil shrugs. “No, I don’t think so. Didn’t really feel much yesterday at all, actually.”

“Oh, thank god.” Dan slumps back down. “I got myself off and didn’t realize ‘til I was done that like, shit, what if you could feel me?”

Phil chokes on his own spit. “Dan! What are you—why—” Don’t picture it, he tells himself through the sudden onslaught of images in his mind. Don’t picture Dan warm and sleep-soft in bed with a hand down his boxers, trying to keep quiet so his flatmates don’t hear through the shitty thin walls. That’s not something Phil should be picturing, for reasons he’s pulling a blank on but definitely exist. “It has to do with emotions, why the hell would I be able to feel you doing… that?”

“I don’t know!” Dan sounds defensive, which is ridiculous. “Maybe when you come there’s, like. Isn’t there some chemical shit going on? Anyway, good to know. I’ve been seriously holding back, Jesus Christ.”

Phil feels the apples of his cheeks start to burn. “If you’re talking about it so openly now, dunno why’d you care if I could feel anything or not.”

“It’s different, you tosser. Though now I’m confused why people say bonded sex is so great. You ever read about that? Here I was thinking there was some sorta—”

Dan goes silent and visibly shudders.

“Whoa. I just felt… wait a second.” He squints at Phil and Phil fights the urge to roll away and bury his face in his hands. “Are you embarrassed? Or something?”

“No. I don’t know what you mean.”

Dan’s eyes light up. “Oh my god, you are. You’re embarrassed, aren’t you? Oh my god, you’re—are you feeling shy, Phil?”

Phil does roll away this time. He feels something burning hot shoot from the top of his head down through his chest to settle low in his stomach. He can’t tell if it’s from the bond or himself, and though he’d pictured that sort of confusion a lot, had assumed it’d cause a miniature internal crisis, right now he doesn’t even care. He hides his face into the arm of the sofa and instinctually kicks his legs out in case Dan tries to scoot any closer.

“I’m not, though? Not sure what makes you think so,” he says, his voice deceptively calm, though muffled by the sofa.

“Oh my god,” Dan says again, sounding utterly delighted. “I didn’t even know you could get embarrassed! And it’s because of me? I made grumpy old Phil blush?”

“What the fuck,” Phil huffs out with a disbelieving laugh. He peeks back and digs his heel into the side of Dan’s thigh, hoping to wipe the stupid grin off his face. “What’s with you, you weirdo, you’re the actual worst person I’ve ever met. Like, genuinely. I take back all the nice things I’ve ever said.”

“Yeah, right. What was it you said that night?” Dan grabs Phil’s ankle and holds him still. “ _Oh, Dan, sweetie, don’t worry, you’re actually amazing, I’ll protect you, please, I’m so desperate for a friend, you’re so cool and handsome and talented, I’ll buy you dinners and everything, just please keep hanging out with me_ —”

If Phil was embarrassed by Dan talking about getting off, he’s absolutely mortified now. “That was… that was because of you! You were looking all sad and pathetic and like a kicked puppy and, I, just, I didn’t even say that, first of all—”

“Maybe you didn’t say all that, but I could feel it. Felt bad for you, honestly, didn’t know you liked me so much. I’ll try to give you more attention from now on.”

“You’re the worst person I’ve ever met,” Phil repeats, his arm thrown over his face, as he desperately hopes the bond doesn’t expose him.

***

Phil’s not entirely sure where Dan and him stand. These past few weeks have came and went with an amount of normalcy bordering on unsettling. Phil was leagues more stressed back before the bond actually settled, and he’s not sure how weird that is. 

Many of his worries have come true, in one way or another. Sometimes he feels something and isn’t sure if it’s coming through the bond, or just his own body. Sometimes the effects are jarring and catch him off-guard, even causing him to drop his coffee mug one time. Sometimes he’ll be hanging out with Dan and they’ll both be dying of laughter, or Dan’ll be poking his sides or wrestling the remote out of his hands or something else that makes Phil think maybe they’re both actually fourteen years old, and he’ll just feel—good. Warm and full and tingly and he’s fairly certain it’s just him, but occasionally he wonders if it’s being augmented by the bond. 

They’re all things he’d thought would drive him mad, but he’s sort of just been not acknowledging them. Or genuinely not caring, he can’t tell. And maybe he should be talking to Dan, asking him how he’s handling it, but Phil hasn’t felt like sitting down and initiating a big serious conversation just because it feels like he’s supposed to.

All the lead-up and anticipating and agonizing, and it kind of just feels like they’re two normal friends that happen to have a mysterious mental link. 

At this point, that might be exactly what they are.

And when he thinks about it, he’s not sure he’s ever had a friend like Dan. Not in a long while, at least. He’s close with his other friends, and he doesn’t think they secretly hate him or anything. But he’s noticed a pattern, ever since he was a teenager and started being conscious of these sorts of things, where he’s always the one that initiates things.

And really, that’s fine. Maybe it’s only this way because he makes it that way. No matter the reason, it isn’t a huge stressor in his life. It’s just always felt like he likes people more than they like him, and he’s accepted that. He jokingly tells himself that he has a lot of love to give and not a whole lot of outlets.

So, he’s never really imagined what it’d feel like to be on the other side.

Not that Dan seems desperate or clingy or that he likes Phil more than Phil likes him. It’s just—

dan [4:03am]  
i’m gonna die  
a dude that was prob drunk just literally barged into my room  
i mean, he didn’t realize i was in the room, so he wasn’t trying to be an ass  
but like. what the fuck

dan [4:24am]  
i guess i could leave my room and go take a piss and grab something to eat even tho there’s people over  
like a normal human being  
is it allowed to have ppl over all the time?? in a flat?? i mean they don’t really make noise or do anything except make life harder for me but  
if i get to the kitchen tomorrow and see one of them ate my special brownie i’ve been saving i’m gonna kill. idk who and it might be you so be careful

phil [9:52am]  
are you still alive?

dan [9:58am]  
when i left for work one of them said i should “come out of my room more” but yes

phil [9:59am]  
that’s what my mum used to say to me when I was like 15

dan [9:59am]  
i should’ve said i have a job to worry about bc i’m responsible and i can’t be up drinking at 3am every night, but i just smiled at him and awkwardly scooted away

phil [10:02am]  
well at least it means he wants to hang out with you? I guess?

dan [10:18am]  
idk. i think both of them find it funny that i’m like ~a social recluse~

dan [12:58pm]  
btw. instead of me going over tonight, we should do something

phil [1:39pm]  
?

dan [1:45pm]  
love that enthusiasm. i just mean, can we please do something besides eat and play video games and watch shit, for the love of god

phil [1:46pm]  
what else is there? :(

dan [1:50pm]  
2 questions. 1, do you feel like actually leaving the house

phil [1:52pm]  
will you hate me if I say no?

dan [1:53pm]  
fine, 2, do you drink

phil [1:54pm]  
will I regret saying yes

dan [2:56pm]  
you better not, i’m gonna plan the best 2 lonely losers date ever

phil [3:01pm]  
why does that sound so ominous?

dan [6:28pm]  
wait  
you can say no, but i just realized both my flatmates are gone today  
or until ass oclock tonight but still  
you wanna come to mine for once?

Phil shows up at Dan’s flat around 7pm. It’s surprisingly close to Phil’s own flat, just a couple blocks past the cafe. But Phil’s still huffing and puffing by the time he climbs the stairs. He’s really been neglecting his daily walks lately.

Dan opens the door wearing a plain black t-shirt and joggers. There’s some sort of bleach stain on the side of the shirt, and Phil thinks these might be Dan’s pyjamas. It’s not like Dan comes over to Phil’s place dressed up, but it’s different. At this point, it’s a bit silly to think something feels intimate, when it comes to the two of them. But it’s an odd feeling, seeing some dressing in something that they presumably lie around the house and sleep in. Something they’d definitely change out of if they were to leave, something not very many people at all are meant to see.

The shirt is also riding up a bit, and the waistband is a little loose and dips downward, and Phil averts his gaze mainly because he’s afraid that—

“Either you’re really overjoyed to get to spend some time with me,” Dan says, “or you see something you like.”

“You’re literally in a pair of ratty old joggers,” Phil says, keeping his face carefully neutral. “Not sure what there is to like.”

Most of the time, Phil doesn’t call Dan out on anything he feels through the bond. They’ve never talked about it—which, okay, maybe they should’ve, maybe that’s one downside of never actually talking about the bond—but Phil had assumed it to be an unspoken rule of sorts. 

He realized very quickly that Dan doesn’t share that sentiment. Phil’s not sure how frequently Dan feels things, so he doesn’t know if Dan points it out literally every time, but it sure feels like it.

And they’re always things that are embarrassing for Phil in one way or another. 

Which means Phil has a perfectly reasonable excuse to ask Dan to stop. He always feels so exposed when Dan points out he’s felt something. And that’s just from the fact that Dan’s able to feel it at all, let alone Dan’s reactions.

He’s not sure why he doesn’t. It’s not that he likes the teasing, because that would be weird, probably. It’s just… genuinely funny, most of the time. 

Phil thinks he should really give himself more credit for handling this whole bond thing so well.

Dan steps aside to let him in. “I’d think so too, but I’m not the one making the backs of my knees tickle. Which like, what the fuck, by the way. Can’t you control that? Do something a bit nicer? I’ve really been needing a neck massage, so.”

“Just shut up,” Phil says, because he can’t think of a retort. He walks inside and looks around.

“Welcome to my lovely home,” Dan says. He comes up from behind and puts a hand on Phil’s shoulder. “Might not look too great, but there’s no rats or cockroaches or anything, I promise.”

It isn’t _bad_. By the way Dan’s talked about the place, Phil was nearly expecting a barely held together shack. It’s not bad, it’s just small. They just walked in the door and they’re right in a living room-slash-kitchen, and Phil can see three doors from where they’re standing. One’s open, revealing a weirdly ugly off-yellow toilet. Phil didn’t even know toilets could be ugly.

“Do your flatmates share a room?” Phil asks.

“Yup. Guess I should be thankful I’ve got a room to myself.” Dan starts walking over to the small kitchen area and Phil trails behind him. “God, I don’t think even low rent would make me able to deal with sharing a room someone.”

“I don’t think it would be so bad, with the right person,” Phil says. And he isn’t sure what exactly goes through his mind, but for some unfathomable reason he adds, “I could picture sharing one with you.”

Dan pauses from going to open the refrigerator and turns back to face Phil. He’s got a look on his face like he’s trying to hold back a laugh, but he manages to give Phil a once-over that’s so obviously lewd it’s comical. It still makes Phil’s stomach twist and flip. “That’s an interesting way of putting it, but same.”

Right. That’s the other thing about this unconventional friendship Phil’s found himself in.

Sometimes Dan says things that are—well, Phil’s not sure what they are. He’s realized something about Dan is that he’s almost never serious. Or rather, he can be serious, but it’s always wrapped in layers of snark, enough he could claim he was joking. Like he lives trying to always maintain plausible deniability for if he was ever called out on something.

So, Dan does and says a lot of things that could be taken as flirting. Phil’s not dense, he can recognize it. But he knows Dan well enough by now to know not to take them as genuine. Dan’s got a crude sense of humor, Phil’s known that for ages, and it’s probably just an extension of that.

It’s the _probably_ that’s the issue.

He’s refusing to call it a crush. The thought of him crushing on Dan after all that’s happened, after all the back and forth he’d done on Dan’s character, after all the anxiety about being caught in a bond—it’s laughable. He’s not going to go from wondering if he’ll be able to make it through his everyday life with this huge inconvenience to deal with, to being glad he has a reason to see Dan so often. He just refuses.

He can be mature about this. Dan’s attractive. Phil’s acknowledged that since day one, since the first day he walked into the cafe. Dan’s also funny. Being hot and funny is basically the scientific formula for being desirable. In a way, it might’ve been inevitable that Phil would be drawn to him.

Dan constantly acting like he’s flirting doesn’t exactly help, but Phil can deal with it. Even though every time it happens there’s a desperate little goblin in the back of his brain stuttering and blushing and whispering to Phil _what if he isn’t just playing around, that’s what flirting is isn’t it, it’s playful, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t mean it—_

Phil does his best to shut it out. Much more pressing than whether Dan likes him or not is the issue of their bond. There’s no point in even entertaining the idea. He can’t imagine navigating a relationship with a bond in play.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Phil mumbles. The look on Dan’s face makes it clear that the bond violated Phil’s privacy again, but thankfully he doesn’t tease this time.

“Anyway,” Dan says, turning around. “You better fucking thank me for this. I don’t spend money on just anyone, so really lay it on thick. Because… ta-da!”

Dan holds out a bottle of champagne. Phil stares at it.

“Oh,” Phil says. “I have wine at home I could’ve brought over. Sorry, could’ve saved you the trouble.”

“Oh my god,” Dan groans. “This is special, this is… I dunno. Anyway, this isn’t even the point. I told you, we’re gonna have fun tonight.”

The gears turn uselessly in Phil’s head. “Um… why?”

Dan shoots Phil a look he probably deserves. “Because I want to have fun? Really not that complicated, mate.”

Phil opens his mouth to snark back but Dan turns around to open the cupboard and pull out two mugs. They’re really getting fancy tonight, apparently.

“Though,” Dan says, still not looking back at Phil, “I kinda also wanted to do something nice for you.”

“What? Why?”

Dan turns around and hands Phil his mug. His face is perfectly neutral, but the backs of Phil’s ears burn hot for a second or two before fading. “Again, because I want to? And… I dunno, you’re always doing shit for me.”

Dan takes off down the hall and Phil has no choice but to follow. “No I’m not. Am I? I—what—”

“Oh, come on. Just the other day you texted me while I was at work just to remind me to count to ten in my head if any assholes came along.”

“Yeah, but that’s… I…”

He doesn’t _try_ to be nice, he nearly says. Except, if he’s honest with himself, maybe he does. 

“Anyway, whatever. Get in my room, I have mood lighting to set.”

***

“No offence,” Phil says, “but I think your fun little night in is kind of a flop.”

So maybe it isn’t a _flop_ , but things have gone hilariously wrong.

Dan had apparently been planning on playing a board game, and he’d confidently walked off to get it only to return empty handed. He’d forgotten he’d thrown it out a year ago after assuming he’d never play it. Then they’d tried to watch Netflix on Dan’s laptop, but the wifi was being so horrendously slow, they gave up.

Then, he’d started trying to make a blanket fort using his bedposts. (Or, as he’d called it, an alcohol den.) Only the bedposts weren’t that high, and once he’d finished, they’d realized they definitely wouldn’t have room to sit up. Phil had found the thought of lying next to Dan in bed in a cozy little blanket cocoon weirdly charming, but he wasn’t about to say anything.

So now they’re sitting up on Dan’s bed, backs against the wall with pillows for support, finishing off the bottle of champagne. Half a bottle definitely isn’t enough for Phil to get drunk, but he does feel pleasantly buzzed.

“I can’t believe the audacity. This is where you’re supposed to step in with that ‘it’s the thought that counts’ shit.”

“I mean, it’s nice to finally see your place. I’ll give you that.”

“Right. Some juicy Dan lore for your journal. You’re welcome.”

Phil isn’t a particularly bad conversationalist most of the time. But, somehow they’ve spent the last hour just talking, and that’s impressive in Phil’s books. The emptier the champagne bottle got, the more frank they seemed to get. They talked about Phil’s brother, Dan dropping out of uni, Phil’s ex, Dan’s last proper relationship being back when he was a teenager. 

“I feel like I wanna ask you something,” Dan says. They’re not cuddling, because that’s not—a thing that happens, but somehow they’ve drifted closer so their sides are pressed right up against each other. “But like. I also feel like you’re gonna get mad or upset or just generally I’m gonna fuck up.”

“Oh, god. Did you invite me over just to ambush me with a serious conversation?”

“No, you dick,” Dan says as he pushes Phil’s shoulder with his own. “I actually just thought of it now. Like—I’ve been meaning to say something for a while now, but I had no fucking clue how.”

“Well,” Phil says, shifting a little. “Out with it, then. Also, I’d like the think I’ve reached the maturity level where I wouldn’t instantly blow up at something. So, no worries. Probably.”

Dan rolls his eyes. “Great, you’re making this real easy on me. Anyway, it’s… about the bond.”

“It’s not a taboo, Dan, my god, I can handle you mentioning it.”

Dan groans and scrubs at his face. “Just, shut up and listen to me. It’s, um. Is it really going to break? Like, are we doing well?”

Phil blinks. “Uh, well, we’re doing all the right things, I think. If there was a way to consciously sever the bond or whatever, I’m sure a lot more people would be taking advantage of it.”

“Right. Yeah. I just, sometimes I worry that… I dunno.”

Phil’s not going to do anything as stupid as feel hurt that Dan’s apparently anticipating the end of the bond so much. He’d be a real and true idiot, an absolute buffoon, a blubbering nincompoop, not to mention a hypocrite. 

“Like, it’s only been… what, a couple months total? Maybe even less? I didn’t really want to bring it up before, but like. This could end up being a kinda. Long-term thing.”

“I know,” Dan says. “It’s not that. It’s just, I—I sometimes think, what if I’m messing it up somehow?”

Phil cocks his head. “What d’ya mean?”

Dan crosses his arms and huffs. “I _mean_ , I don’t know if I want it to break badly enough.”

Phil feels his brain just shut down for a moment. Like he’d been innocently going about his day and his life suddenly blue screened while he was pouring himself a glass of juice.

“Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I don’t want it to break, either. Especially since I’d literally be trapping you with me, like—that’s not it. It’s just, I dunno if I’m actively rejecting it? If that makes sense?”

Actively rejecting. Something about those words resonates in Phil’s mind and boots him back up.

He’s not sure how to describe how his own reaction to the bond has been, but he’s almost certain ‘actively rejecting’ would not be it.

And that’s—a surprise. A big one, actually. Obviously he’s been aware that he’s been dealing with things well, but he never thought of it like that before. He’s not rejecting the bond, not even close. 

He’s just sort of… living with it.

Phil asks the first thing that comes to mind. “Why not?”

“I… don’t know. I’m not happy with it, obviously. Think we’ve established that by now. But, mate. I’m depressed. I’m lonely. Literally nothing happens in my life, like… just nothing happens? And that’s my own fault, okay. But… this is the only, like, _thing_ that’s happened to me in forever.”

“Glad to give you some entertainment, I guess?”

“I know, I sound like an ass. But also, like. There’s that, but then…” Dan nibbles on his bottom lip. “Has it really been that bad? Like, as bad as you were expecting before it settled.”

There it is. The question that’d been looming in the back of Phil’s mind lately, now asked point-blank to his face.

The shock of it might be what makes an answer immediately come to him. No, it hasn’t. Definitely not as bad as his past self had been predicting, and really—not even that bad, in general.

Phil is a private person. He likes his alone time, and he also likes having certain things kept to himself. It was different back when he was younger, craving validation in any form he could get, but at least within the past several years, he keeps people at an arm’s length. Even most of his friends. It’s just easier that way. Less stress, less wondering if he’d fucked something up, less worrying that people are judging him. Because as hard as he’d tried over his twenty seven years of life, he still cares what other people think.

He couldn’t do that with Dan. He was forced to open up. After all, it’d be pretty useless to try and maintain distance with someone he was connected to mentally or spiritually or whatever the hell it is.

Or—

That’s not quite right, Phil thinks. They could’ve done this like a business arrangement. They could’ve strictly timed two hours a day and met in a public place and not said a word to each other. Even if not that extreme, he can’t claim that the place he’s in now is because of the bond.

Maybe the bond had just given him an excuse to let more of himself shine through than normally would in this amount of time. Or maybe it was just Dan. He’d worried so much about not being able to hide what he’d be feeling, but now most of the time he finds himself just not giving a shit if Dan knows or not.

“No, it… honestly, it hasn’t been terrible,” Phil finally says. “I think it was a lot of, you know. Worst case scenario stuff, that I’d been imagining. Turns out you’re actually a decent person, who’d’ve thought.”

“That’s cool, but I feel like you’re massively jinxing us right now.”

“You’re the one that brought it up! If there’s some big blow up soon, I’m blaming you.”

Dan laughs and Phil takes a moment to think. If they’re both handling it fine, if they’re both basically okay—

Is there really a reason to start stressing about it again?

Yes, a smaller side of Phil’s brain scolds. Of course there is. He needs to think of the future. If there ever comes a time when he does truly hate it, if he ever desperately and urgently wants it gone, he’d regret not putting in the effort earlier.

Although, when he thinks about it—he’s not sure what _effort_ would entail. Would he have to hate Dan for the bond to break? Is that some sort of prerequisite? In the accounts of bond breakage Phil had read, he doesn’t think he’d ever came across one where the people liked each other, just not the bond. And in the past, he’d never imagined that he’d get this close with Dan. He’d never considered what that’d mean for their bond.

Phil isn’t the type that can just choose not to worry about something. If he was, a lot of things in his life would’ve been easier. He can’t just brush things aside or go with the flow, and most of the time he can’t understand how other people can.

So, he’s really not sure what’s going on in his mind when he says, “Anyway, if it makes you feel better, I’m pretty sure that I haven’t exactly been actively rejecting it either.” He pauses. “I think we have to just see where it goes, to be honest.”

Dan raises an eyebrow. “Put it off for future Dan and Phil to deal with, huh?”

“Exactly.”

“Think I’ve corrupted you,” Dan says, shaking his head, though he’s smiling. “Are you the same guy that called me while I was at work, sounding like it was life or death, asking if you were supposed to offer the plumber a cup of tea or not?”

“You said you weren’t gonna make fun of me for that!”

“I’m not, it was cute. Just saying, you’re sort of the opposite of laid-back.”

“Can’t believe I’m just sitting here, allowing all these attacks on my character.”

“Okay, whatever. You’re right, anyway. I just… thought I should say something.”

Phil reaches over and pats Dan’s head and hopes it comes across patronizingly. “Good job communicating, Dan. Gold star.”

In retaliation, Dan reaches over to boop Phil’s nose, and says in a sickeningly sweet voice, “And good job not having a crisis over our bond like you used to. You’ve grown up so fast. I’m proud.”

Phil ends up leaving Dan’s flat much later than he probably should’ve, thinking how they’re likely both what the rest of the world would call strange people.

***

dan [6:48 pm]  
can i come over tonight?

Phil’s phone dings with a text notification on a Friday evening. He considers saying no for a moment, just because he’s pretty sure that Friday nights are usually a time when most people aren’t immediately available. But by now, Dan’s probably seen him at his worst, and he definitely knows Phil isn’t out there with an active social life.

phil [6:51 pm]  
ok. why though?

dan [6:52 pm]  
idk just bored and lonely lmao

That’s a pretty typical quip for Dan’s sense of humor. There’s really no cause for alarm or confusion on Phil’s part. But—

Throughout the day Phil’s been getting flashes through the bond that he’s been trying to ignore. It’s not unusual for him to feel bad things—his chest tightening, a shooting pain through his gut, a crick in his neck—but it is unusual for them to happen multiple times in the same day. 

He’s come to realize that the sensations from the bond aren’t consistent enough that he can necessarily match up each one with a specific emotion. But he does get a general idea. Just the other day he teased Dan for being scared and pretending to be fine while they were watching a horror movie, and apparently he’d been right.

So, Dan is obviously not having a very good day.

phil [6:54 pm]  
well, I’m done with work for the day so whenever you want to come over is fine

Dan’s knocking about half an hour later. Phil opens the door and going by the intensity of what Phil had been feeling all day, he half-expects Dan to walk in with his shoulders slumped, dark circles pronounced, even some tear marks or something.

Instead Dan pushes through the door and waltzes in. “I’m fucking starving,” he groans. “You got any cereal or something?”

Phil had been really primed to go into comfort mode, so he fumbles a little. “Um, yeah, I do. I have some Shreddies sitting on the kitchen counter. Bowls are in the farthest cupboard.”

Dan takes off his coat and throws it haphazardly onto Phil’s dining table. “Thank god. You’re a lifesaver.”

Phil’s sat down and starting back up an episode of American Horror Story by the time Dan comes back, one of the biggest bowls Phil owns piled dangerously high with cereal. Phil shoots him a judgemental stare.

“You’d think you’d hold back if you were eating someone else’s food,” he says.

Dan flops down on the sofa and Phil has a split-second heart attack thinking the bowl’s going to spill. “And what’re you gonna do about it, huh? You let me nap in your bed the other day, mate. You’d literally let me do anything.”

Right. Phil’s stupid brain still hasn’t gotten over the image of Dan looking all cozy and content, wrapped up in Phil’s blankets. But he protests weakly, “I would not. I could kick you out right now.”

“You wouldn’t dream of it. What’ve you done today? Work and watch shows? I’m the highlight of your day, admit it. You’re welcome.”

That’s—weirdly true, in a way, but Phil isn’t about to say that. “Oi, just yesterday I met my brother for lunch. I lead a very exciting life, thanks.”

“Wow, neat,” Dan says, like he’s talking to a five year old showing off their drawing.

The banter dies down and they both sit around silently watching the telly for nearly an hour. Halfway through Phil starts bouncing his leg nervously, because—he really wants to ask Dan if something’s wrong.

But he’s not sure if that would be crossing a line. Any time either of them have ever pointed out something from the bond, it’s been light-hearted, meant to tease or get some sort of reaction. It feels like a bigger violation of privacy, for some reason, to talk about something that’s presumably serious. Even though they both feel everything anyway, there’s no use pretending they don’t.

His thoughts are interrupted by Dan groaning loudly. 

“I wanna do something, but like, simultaneously don’t want to have to be in public or interact with anyone or do literally anything,” Dan says.

“You’ve been interacting with me,” Phil points out.

“You don’t count. You already know what a mess I am, I don’t have to put in any effort in pretending to be a normal human being. Also, you’re contractually obligated to like me.”

“I mean… I also like you just because I like you. But true.”

A fizzling heat briefly flares up on the back of Phil’s neck. “Yikes. Didn’t realize things were getting so serious. And here I’ve just been using you for your comfy sofa.”

Phil scoffs, and before he can think twice about it, he adds, “Hey, you know, I was curious. Have you been having a bad day?”

“Oh,” Dan says. He shifts in his seat. “Guess you felt something, huh?”

“Yeah. Well, something-s. Plural. And they were pretty, like, intense.”

“Well. I don’t think it’s been bad like, notable bad?” Dan says. “I have bad days pretty often, not to brag. But I guess when I think about it, it might’ve been the worst since the bond started? Not sure.”

“Oh. Um, do you want to talk—”

“I don’t want to talk about it, no,” Dan laughs. “Thanks for asking. Not to be a dick. It’s just, it’s the same old shit. Where’s my future going, blah blah. I go over it again and again with like my therapist and even my mum, so. Sometimes I feel like talking about it just makes it worse.”

“Okay,” Phil says. “And sorry, I probably shouldn’t have… I dunno if I shouldn’t, like, ask about stuff I feel—”

“No,” Dan says quickly. “No, that’s fine, really. I don’t care if you point out what you feel, dunno if that makes me an oversharer, but yeah. And… I mean. That you’d even care to ask, is—you know, it’s—I’m not used to—not a lot of people… yeah.”

“Of course,” Phil mumbles, because for some reason he’s embarrassed now. He’s pretty sure Dan was trying to say with that jumble of words that he’s not used to people caring. Or, not used to people asking him if something’s wrong, whichever. Phil wonders if it makes him a bad person if he feels a little stab of pride at apparently being somewhat special.

So Dan doesn’t want to talk about it, which is fine. God, the last thing Phil wants to be is pushy. But he sucks at holding himself back once he gets an idea in his head, and he can’t stop thinking that there’s other things to do other than just talking.

“I think I’m gonna order some takeaway,” Phil says. Dan nods.

It’s pretty common for Phil to order delivery, but he’s never specifically bought something for Dan too, unless he asked. Maybe he’ll lose his nerve once it actually arrives, but worst case scenario, he can eat it himself.

He orders sushi and it take approximately two minutes for him to start worrying that this’ll actually make Dan mad. Scenarios of Dan snapping that he doesn’t need Phil’s pity play in his mind. What is he trying to do here, exactly, buy Dan’s happiness?

Phil’s impulsive in the strangest of ways sometimes.

There’s a knock on his door before Phil can ruminate any further, and he’s left with a stack of takeaway boxes holding way too many rolls for one human to comfortably consume.

Nothing to do but reap what he’s sown. “Dan, I got us sushi.”

Dan’s sprawled out on the sofa, one leg dangling off the side. He looks up from whatever he was doing on his phone. “Um, what?”

Phil shifts in place. “I… felt like sushi. So I got some for you too. If you want it.”

Dan slowly sits up and looks at Phil strangely. It kind of reminds Phil of that first night, when he’d offered to make Dan dinner. “Okay… I’m scared to ask why. Either you’re gonna spring the news that you have to kill me, or you’re trying to get me to have sex with you.”

Phil huffs and internally applauds himself for being much better at not reacting to Dan’s crudeness than he used to be. He considers deflecting, but he just says, “Because look, okay, you said you didn’t want to talk about it. Which I’m totally respecting. But, just… the bond was so bad, all day. And I know I can’t—make it better, or whatever, trust me. But I thought maybe I could do something nice. To, like, balance it out a tiny bit.”

Dan doesn’t say anything. Phil starts assuming the worst, especially when he gets up and starts walking over to Phil.

“Firstly, I’m still paying you back at the cafe. Irene said no more free drinks, but she didn’t say shit about extra toppings. Secondly, don’t try to pull this shit every time I have a bad day, that’s just a disaster waiting to happen. Like, if we should’ve set some Bond Rules or whatever, that’s one of them.”

Phil nods. “Sorry.”

“You apologize too much. On with it then, hand me whatever you got. If you bought me something with cream cheese, you don’t even wanna know what I’ll do to you.”

“Actually, I was thinking we’d share them all. Like, eat a little of everything instead of just our own one.”

“Fuck. This is why I keep you around.”

They sit cross-legged on the sofa, facing each other with the boxes in between them. At some point Phil stops eating, and just watches in what he hopes is the least creepy way possible.

It’d been a long time since he made someone happy before Dan came along. He’d forgotten how fulfilling it is.

It’s not that he has a savior complex. It just—feels nice. There’s something about Dan that makes Phil want to make things better. And it’s not even like Dan’s particularly pitiful or helpless. Maybe it’s because he’s younger, maybe it’s triggering some dormant protective instincts inside Phil. Maybe it’s because he’s always shielded with sarcasm yet seems so genuinely thankful when Phil does something. Maybe Phil’s insecure and just wants to feel like he’s important. Or—

Or, maybe it’s not that complicated.

Maybe Phil just cares about Dan and likes seeing him happy.

Maybe Phil should admit that Dan is a lot more than just hot and funny.

Maybe Phil should be focused more on communicating rather than hoping his feelings will go away.

Maybe he should start thinking about what, exactly, would be so bad about being honest. 

As he watches Dan shove another piece in his mouth with probably more enthusiasm than necessary, he tells himself he will.

***

The thing is—

Phil was lonely, but he didn’t have a horrible life before Dan came along. He hadn’t felt like he was missing something, he wasn’t unfulfilled or unhappy or even particularly bored.

But there’s a difference. There’s a difference, when he thinks of himself from before and himself now. There’s a difference between the days where Dan comes over and where they just talk over text.

He hadn’t needed Dan. He doesn’t think of their meeting as a gift from the heavens or something destined. Even if they hadn’t met, Phil probably would’ve went on to live a perfectly fine life. 

He hadn’t needed him, and if asked if he believes in fate Phil would say no, but he’s happy he met Dan, and maybe that’s important enough.

***

Phil hasn’t actually done a very good job at communicating. As in, he hasn’t said anything at all.

He knows it’s stupid, and he should just be an adult about this whole thing. But he supposes there are, genuinely, more things at stake here than if Dan was just a normal friend. If him telling Dan that’s he’s kinda really into him makes things awkward, or worse, Phil’s not sure how that’d work out with the bond and them being stuck together and all.

And, right. That’s another problem entirely.

Coming to terms with his feelings doesn’t change anything about the fact that they’re in a bond. A bond, the thing Phil had spent years put off by. The thing that’d caused Phil so much grief. 

He likes Dan. A lot. But he’s not sure if that’s enough. 

It’s not about the present. He’s been handling the bond well, there’s no reason that’d instantly change the second he got into a relationship. It’s more about the future, about the potential of it. They are, technically, still trying to break the bond. And he’s pretty sure that wouldn’t happen if they got together. Which would mean no extended periods of time away from each other, no hiding feelings during an argument, no true alone time—

At the same time, a part of him thinks, maybe.

Maybe, it’d be worth it to try.

(There’s also the issue of Dan even wanting what Phil wants, but he has enough on his plate already.)

“I told my mum about us,” Dan springs on Phil one day.

Phil’s down at the cafe, sipping a latte Dan made “unacceptably sweet”, just how Phil likes it.

“Oh,” Phil says. “That’s… nice?”

Phil still hasn’t told his mum, or anyone in his family for that matter. He’s seen Martyn and Cornelia and talked to his parents countless times over the past months, but he’s just… hesitant.

It’s almost like he’s defensive. For his own sake, or maybe Dan’s. He can’t tell. He’s afraid of his mum getting that look on her face, the one where she obviously loves him and all but he’s doing something stupid. He doesn’t want to hear that it’s a bad idea, that he should stop seeing Dan and try to force the bond to break. He has no reason to think any of them would dislike Dan, but he’s also afraid they’d say something about him being younger and over at Phil’s place all the time. Like without knowing how wonderful he is they’d think he was taking advantage of Phil. Martyn especially is always protective of Phil, but Phil just doesn’t want to deal with hearing negative things about Dan right now.

Although, for his parents he’s not completely sure they’d _like_ him, either. He still remembers how things had been uncomfortable with his last boyfriend—not tense, not hostile, just uncomfortable. He also remembers how much he’d struggled with that, wondering if he had any right to be upset with them or if he should’ve just been grateful they were trying at all. Even though it made him mad that it was something that apparently needed trying.

“Yeah, I guess,” Dan says. “I mean, I told her about your existence before, but I didn’t tell her until now that we’re bonded. Oh, also, she wants to meet you."

Phil pauses with his latte halfway to his mouth. “Huh?”

“Yeah, as in, she wants me to bring you up for a weekend sometime. Soon.”

Phil falters. “That’s um, wh… why?”

Dan sighs. “Because she’s nosy, first of all. But also when I told her all I said was _I’ve bonded_ and I didn’t realise ‘til after she started congratulating me that she thought I meant, you know. Bonded in a happy relationship and all that jazz. Which—I’ve corrected her, don’t worry, but now she’s really fucking curious even though I told her it’s not that interesting.”

Dan doesn’t talk about his family a lot. In fact, practically all he’s ever said was related to his parents being in a bond. And with his account of that being as negative as it was, Phil had taken to thinking that Dan’s relationship with his family reflected that.

Apparently he was wrong, if Dan’s chatting with his mum about their bond.

Dan seems to take Phil’s silence as a refusal. “Trust me, if I were you I wouldn’t want to, and like I don’t really get how your job works, so I dunno if you can even take a few days off or not. So I can tell her no, it’s fine, just thought I’d mention it to you—”

“Nah, it’s... it’s fine, actually,” Phil says, without even really thinking about it. “Um, maybe? Is your mum nice?”

“Nice? I guess. She’s not all uptight or judgy or like… a super parent-y parent, you know the type. She’s kinda blunt and doesn’t take bullshit, but like, in a fun way. Free-spirited?”

Phil hums. “You know, I thought you didn’t get on with your parents.”

Dan looks at him strangely. “What? Why?”

“Um,” Phil mentally slaps himself as he realizes that’s probably a rude thing to say. “Like. You’d mentioned them being bonded a couple times, and you always seemed…”

“Oh. Well, yeah, that whole thing is touchy or whatever. But that’s just a sore spot. We get on fine. Especially since I moved out. I dunno. Absence makes the heart grow fonder or something.”

“Oh,” Phil says. “That’s good.” It sounds incredibly generic, but he means it.

“So,” he says after a moment, “when you say soon, you mean soon like…?”

“Um, well. Like I said, if you can’t go it’s fine, I can just tell her no. But, in the next two weeks? She’s going on holiday after that.”

“That’s fine by me. I’m not swamped right now so the sooner the better, probably.”

“I’ll try to convince her to contain herself. She’s not mean or anything, but she can be… a lot.”

They decide on going that weekend. Phil’s uncharacteristically calm about the whole thing until Friday night rolls around and he’s up until 1am stressing about making a good impression, wondering why he even agreed to go, does he like making himself suffer for no real reason—

But Dan seems weirdly excited when they meet to go take the train up, and Phil tries to let that calm him down. He watches the blur of the hills passing by out the window until his motion sickness gets too intense.

Phil manages to act like a normal person while they’re on the train, but once they get in a cab and start heading to her actual house, the anxiety starts rearing its head.

“I haven’t actually seen my mum for a while now,” Dan says conversationally.

Unfortunately for him, Phil is in the middle of an internal crisis. “D’ya think she’ll like me?”

“Huh?”

“Your mum, will I… how should I act? What does she like?”

“Oh my god,” Dan says, shaking his head. “Don’t act like anything, you weirdo. You’re fine. She doesn’t want to meet you to, like, evaluate you. She just wants to see what’s up and I guess make sure you’re not a horrible person. Which you aren’t, so you have nothing to worry about.”

“That’s exactly what evaluating is!” Phil squeaks.

“Stop it,” Dan chides. He puts a hand on Phil’s leg, dangerously close to his thigh, and squeezes reassuringly. Apparently even Phil’s impending doom isn’t enough to stop that from making his stomach squirm and flip. “You’re _fine_ , I said. Like, if anything—she’s probably gonna fall in love with you, mate. You’re like her dream come true. I don’t think she fully realizes that I’m twenty-three and she doesn’t need to check up on me to see if my friends are playing nice.”

“Why did I agree to this,” Phil groans, slumping over and burying his head in his hands.

Dan pats his shoulder. “Because you’d literally do anything I asked you to.”

Phil peeks out at him. “I dunno where you always get your confidence from. I’m a very intimidating person and you should count yourself lucky you’re on my good side.”

“Right. Remember the other week when you went with me when I was shopping for a new coffeemaker? And some prick knocked into you while you were just standing around, shot you a dirty look, and _you_ apologized?”

“Oh my god, first of all—he didn’t shoot me a dirty look, he just didn’t say anything. Of course I apologized, that’s just like common decency. And I can’t believe you were about to walk up and say something to him, I almost died on the spot, please don’t remind me.”

“You need to assert yourself with those types of people, okay.” Dan somehow sounds both like he’s scolding Phil and pouting.

Phil’s slightly less nervous for the rest of the ride, though his anxiety kicks back into overdrive once they actually pull up to the house. He tries to pull himself together as they step out. If there’s one thing Phil’s an expert at, it’s pretending that he has his shit together.

The house is surprisingly picturesque, though Phil’s not entirely sure what he was expecting. It looks small, but it’s painted a pleasant light blue and the garden out front is well-kept. It certainly isn’t as intimidating as Phil was dreading.

Dan pulls out their luggage. “Come on. She should be home.”

Before Phil can ask for a moment to collect himself, Dan’s walking up to the door and knocking. The door opens when Phil is still catching up to Dan.

“Look who decided to show his face.”

Phil doesn’t get a good look at Dan’s mum before she’s pulling Dan into a hug. Dan trips down slightly and has to hunch to her height. He laughs and they’re both smiling and Phil has to avert his gaze.

“Nice to meet you,” Phil says when they untangle and she peeks over Dan’s shoulder at him. She looks kind enough, her laugh lines pronounces and her eyes still crinkled at the edges from her hug with Dan. He smiles and tries not to show that his heart is pounding out of his chest.

“Mum, he’s like, stupidly nervous,” Dan says. “Just so you know. If he’s super weird he isn’t usually like this, I swear.”

“Dan!” Phil hisses. Five seconds in and Dan’s already embarrassing him.

Dan’s mum laughs. “Alright. Nice to meet you too, but let’s go in. No sense in standing around outside.”

The inside is an odd mix of homey and minimalistic. It’s clean with everything perfectly in its place. The actual number of belongings taking up space is low, but they all look well-used. Dan leaves their luggage by the door and she leads them to the dining room.

“Dan barely tells me anything, so I didn’t hear until this morning that you two were coming over,” she says over her shoulder. Phil wants to reach over and flick Dan on the forehead. “I’m afraid I don’t have much.”

“Don’t worry about us,” Phil says. “We didn’t come expecting some big welcome.”

“Still. Let me get you guys something to drink. Water? Coke? Something to loosen the nerves?”

“Oh, um,” he says, not even really processing her joke. “Water? Water’s good.”

“Get me a coke,” Dan says. Then adds, “Thanks.”

“Glad to see you haven’t forgotten all your manners,” she grumbles to herself.

She walks into the kitchen and Phil looks around a little helplessly before taking a seat at the dining table. Dan sits down next to him and leans over.

“You’re not here to ask for permission to marry me, you know,” Dan whispers. “You don’t have to be so smooth.”

“I hate you,” Phil whispers back.

Dan’s mum returns with their drinks quickly and joins them at the table. Phil sips his water and looks off at the wall as she and Dan talk for a few minutes. She asks him basic questions about how Dan’s job is going and if Dan’s been keeping in contact with his old uni friends, then turns to Phil after a while, possibly realizing that he’s sitting there excluded. 

“So you’re Phil,” she says. “I hear you’ve been taking very good care of my son.”

Beside him, Dan chokes on his soda. 

“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Phil says, putting on his best polite ‘talking to important adults’ voice. “That makes it sounds like an obligation. If I’ve been doing anything like that, then Dan’s been doing the same for me.”

He can feel Dan staring at him, but he’s too focused on maintaining eye contact with his mum. 

“I’m glad Dan hasn’t been too much of a little gremlin, then. He takes after me, so I can never be sure.”

“ _Mum_ ,” Dan whines, and he sounds so much like Phil did as a petulant teenager, it makes Phil grin.

“No, Dan’s great,” Phil continues. “Really, I should be glad that he’s kinda stuck with me.”

Phil hadn’t exactly been planning on bringing up the bond unprompted. Not only is it just not something he’s keen on talking about, he’s not sure how delicate of a subject it is with Dan’s mum.

So much for that.

“Oi, come on,” Dan butts in. “We both know who’s stuck with who in this situation. Which, you’re completely right, and you’re welcome for putting up with you.”

Dan’s mum laughs and it feels like a weight is lifted off Phil’s shoulders. Her laugh is loud and shrill and just so unapologetically genuine. Phil already feels like he’s starting to like her.

“Anyway, thanks for having me over, um… Ms Howell.”

“Oh, come on. You can call me Karen,” she says.

 _Please don’t make me do that_ Phil wants to say, but he doesn’t.

Phil’s feeling a bit like he’s twelve years old again and over at a new friend’s house for a sleepover. Either that, or he’s a new son-in-law desperate to make a good impression. He can’t quite tell.

“Are you two staying for the weekend?” she asks, turning to Dan.

“Not entirely,” Dan says. “Leave tomorrow afternoon or something? I have work on Monday.”

Karen hums and looks back at Phil. “What exactly is it you do, Phil? Dan said it’s something to do with computers?”

And Phil’s fully prepared for the evaluating to start. He talks a bit stiffly at first, but Dan’s mum is surprisingly good at getting him to lower his walls. He somehow goes from telling her about what he does for a living, to talking about his old uni friends, to talking about Dan and the bond.

“I didn’t exactly have a positive opinion of bonds,” Phil says. “So it was… an adjustment.”

Karen laughs. “I’m sure. And I’m still confused on how you two have worked it out. You must’ve became fast friends.”

“Wrong,” Dan calls out from the sofa he’d flopped down on at some point. Phil had almost thought he’d fallen asleep. “He was just taken in by my good looks. I see the way he ogles me.”

Apparently not even being around Dan’s own mum stops the teasing. “Slander,” Phil says back. “And you can’t talk about ogling after that one time I opened the door fresh out of the shower.”

A zing shoots through his stomach, oddly ticklish. “See what I have to deal with all the time? I should be compensated for my suffering.”

When Phil turns back to Karen, she’s smiling at Dan with such warmth it abruptly embarrasses Phil. He feels exposed, like he just let someone see something that was meant to be private. And he feels like he shouldn’t be seeing the look on her face, either. That feels private too.

“Also, I’m frickin’ bored,” Dan says. For some reason Phil finds the fact that Dan changes ‘fuck’ to ‘frick’ around his mum terribly, terribly endearing. “Please don’t tell me we’re literally just gonna sit around and talk for a day and a half or however long it is.”

Karen huffs. “Phil seems to be enjoying it just fine. But, I do need to go buy things to make dinner. Maybe you two should get settled in.”

“Why don’t we go out for dinner?” Dan asks. “Gives us something to do.”

“Because I was trying to be a good hostess and cook a homemade meal,” Karen says. “But I guess we could. If Phil’s fine with it.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me, whatever you guys want to—”

“Oh my god, shut up,” Dan groans. “We’re going, and Phil wants to too. He’s my bond partner, I can tell, end of story.”

Karen and Phil share a look, as if she’s trying to show she sympathizes with Phil’s plight.

***

Phil can’t say he’d ever expected to be out at a restaurant with Dan and his mum, but life’s funny that way.

He also didn’t expect her to drink them both under the table, but maybe that should teach him not to judge a book by its cover.

It’d started with a playful challenge from Dan’s mum, which Phil had thought would just lead to the three of them getting something light and syrupy to loosen things up a little. Phil’s not big on alcohol. He likes wine and fancy cocktails slowly enjoyed over a tasty meal, but he isn’t particularly a lightweight, either. At the same time, he’s pretty sure the last time he legitimately did shots was back in uni.

Dan, on the other hand, is definitely a lightweight. He tapped out after just two shots of tequila, face already flushed a splotchy, ruddy red. It’s endearing in the same way Phil seems to find everything Dan does endearing.

Karen has been looking at them both for the last ten minutes with either fondness or smugness. Phil isn’t really in a state of mind to judge right now.

“Finish your food, boys,” Karen says, sounding just as collected and put-together as she did earlier. “It’s on me, unless you leave any scraps.”

“You don’t need to treat me,” Phil says. “I feel bad.”

“Oh, please,” she says. “It’s not like we’re anywhere fancy. And besides, I’m sure you weren’t thrilled with the idea of coming up here to meet someone’s mum. Hope I didn’t scare you too much.”

“That’s not true,” Phil half-pouts, even though it kind of is. And because alcohol makes him stupidly honest, he says, “I just hope you like me.”

Karen smiles. “I really did just want to meet you, you know. Because of the bond and all, but even before I heard that. Dan just talks about you so much.”

The spot right below Phil’s heart squeezes and squirms. “He does?”

Dan groans. “‘M right here, you know. And you’re making him happy, stop it. Can feel it in my throat. Don’t stroke his ego any more than necessary.”

Karen pointedly ignores him. “I’m happy, honestly. I’m a mum, can’t help it. I know Dan isn’t really out there all alone in a cold dark world, but sometimes it feels like that. I worry about him.”

“I’m gonna fight you tomorrow,” Dan says. 

“I know, I know,” Karen laughs. “You’re an adult, you’re not helpless. I’m sorry. I just want you to have good people around you.”

Something inside Phil lights up and soars at the thought of him apparently belonging in the category of _good people_. He probably shouldn’t be this easily pleased by validation.

Phil’s not sure if it’s the alcohol or something else entirely that makes Dan just look over at Phil and say, “I do.”

Karen orders another round of shots for them before they leave, because she surely has a sadistic streak in her. Phil probably should’ve suspected something when she’d suggested they walk here instead of driving.

They make it back to her house in one piece, though halfway there Dan throws an arm around Phil’s shoulders for support. He doesn’t actually seem to use it, and he walks by himself just fine, but Phil lets him rest it there anyway. Because he’s just so thoughtful, and also so he can enjoy the closeness of being tucked up into Dan’s side.

“Oh, right,” Dan mumbles when they get in. “Mum, where the hell are we sleeping?”

“There’s a guest room next to the bathroom,” she says. “You’ve been here before, silly. And there’s the sofa and the floor. Figure something out, I’m old and tired.”

Dan brings their luggage into the hallway and they get out their toothbrushes. They go about their nightly routines in silence, and Phil is a bit too out of it to feel the surreality of it.

Eventually they both end up stood in the guest bedroom, staring each other down.

“‘M not sleeping on the sofa,” Dan says with a very intimidating glare. “I call dibs.”

Phil giggles. “This is where you’re supposed to that whole _no you take the bed, you’re the guest_ thing. You’re so rude.”

“Don’t care, I’m not fucking up my back for your sake. There’s a perfectly fine floor.”

“I’m not fucking up _my_ back either!”

Dan flops down on the bed and starfishes out. “Good luck. Update me in the morning.”

“Scoot over.”

Dan lifts his head from where it’s pressed into the pillow to look up at him. “What?”

“Come on,” Phil says, and he’s definitely at least slightly drunk. “We both knew it was gonna end up this way. Let’s just share, okay.”

“Um…”

And because Phil is a mature, reasonable person, he lays down right where his side would normally be. Except Dan’s spread out so Phil ends up laying on his arm, but that’s his problem. “Or you can sleep somewhere else. Either way, move.”

“So demanding,” Dan scoffs, though he rolls over to the other side of the bed anyway.

Phil realizes too late that the light in the corner is still on, but he really, really doesn't want to get up. He groans and rolls away from it, so he's facing Dan.

“You don't look very cozy,” Phil says at the way Dan’s lying there all stiff, as he pulls the duvet over himself.

“I'm gonna wake up with a headache thanks to you, I swear,” Dan grumbles. He joins Phil under the duvet, and for a moment they just stare at each other.

“Don't spoon me in the middle of the night,” Dan says. “That's a privilege you definitely have not earned.”

“Why am I the one doing the spooning? I wanna be spooned for once.”

“As if I'm gonna be the loser stuck with a dead weight on my arm. Or, no—there will be no spooning of any kind!”

Phil’s probably just too drunk to feel awkward. And he’s not sure how Dan’s doing, but he feels—good. A little like something inside him is lit up. Surely due to the alcohol in part, but there’s something else, too. Something about lying across from Dan under a warm duvet, with a light bright enough that he can make out Dan’s face but dim enough that he can feel the pull of sleep.

His eyes trace Dan’s features before he can stop himself, before he can reason that Dan’s looking right at him and would be able to tell if Phil’s eyes wander. 

Phil hasn’t given much thought to the feeling of Dan’s presence after those first few days of getting used to it. He remembers reading online about people growing to like it after a while and not really believing it. He definitely didn’t imagine that he’d be one of them.

Most of the time, he doesn’t notice it. Once it stopped feeling unsettling and started feeling a little more like comforting, it stopped standing out as much. But there’s been some nights where Phil was laying in bed trying to sleep, and he focused on it. Just to see what would happen. 

He’s not sure if he was actually affecting the bond somehow or if was just because of the lack of other stimuli, something like meditation. But when he really paid attention to it like that, it intensified. It overtook his senses, left him feeling surrounded and closed in and safe. He didn’t do it often, and it never happened accidentally. But he thinks it might be happening now. 

“What’re you doing?” Dan murmurs. He has a small smile on his face.

“Huh?” Phil asks, with tremendous effort.

“Feels good. Are you thinking about something?”

That snaps Phil out of his little trance, and the feeling fades. “Oh. Yeah, sorry.”

Dan shakes his head. “If it’d feel like this, feel free to get lost in your happy childhood memories or whatever any time.”

Phil closes his eyes and gives an honest effort in trying to fall asleep. He’s not sure how much time passes before he’s peeking out at Dan and shifting around, trying to determine if Dan’s still awake too. Dan gives him a grunt in response and Phil takes that as a yes.

“Your mum’s cool,” Phil whispers.

“Glad you’ve been enjoying yourself,” Dan whispers back. “I’ve had enough humiliation for at least a week.”

“Was she really in a bond with your dad?”

“You can ask her about it if you really want to. Dunno how she’d react. We don’t talk about it much anymore.”

“I literally just got on her good side. You really don’t know me if you think I’m gonna risk fucking it up.”

“She thinks you’re an angel, she’d probably be fine with it. I mean, I’m not sure how much input she could give. Like, we’re already experiencing it for ourselves.”

“By the way,” Phil says, speaking a little louder but trying to sound as innocent as possible. “You’ve been talking about me a lot, huh?”

It isn’t often Phil sees Dan truly embarrassed. Sometimes he feels things through the bond that betray Dan’s cool exterior. But he doesn’t think he’s ever seen him snap his mouth shut, curl into himself, and bury his face in a pillow like he is now.

“Oh my god,” Dan groans. “I can’t believe she said that.”

“Is it true, then?” Phil asks, giddy and playful. “Wow. I’m flattered.”

“Don’t be. It’s just… it’s just, you know. I only have so much going on in my life, and when she asks how I’m doing I need to think of _something_.”

“I don’t believe you,” Phil singsongs. He lightly pokes at the weak spot on Dan’s side, then more insistently when Dan flinches away.

Dan knees him on the thigh. “Fuck off, you menace. God, is this what you’re like when you’re drunk? Save me.”

“This is the real me, Dan. I thought you’d accepted me by now.”

“Go to sleep. I’ll deal with you in the morning.”

It takes Phil probably the shortest amount of time it has in years to do just that.

***

A small part of Phil was hoping to have a lovely little morning with Dan. Waking up with light shining softly through the window, Dan’s sleeping face across from his, maybe he’d even find that they’d drifted closer in their sleep. Instead, he’s awoken by somebody yanking the duvet off.

He yelps as the cold hits him. “Wha—why?”

“Wake up,” comes a stern voice he takes a moment to recognize as Dan’s. “My mum’s an early riser and she’ll judge us if we sleep too long.”

Phil smacks his lips and groans. He can’t tell if he’s hungover or if it’s just way too early, but he feels like death. “What time is it?”

“It’s 9, which is a perfectly reasonable time for most people. You’re spoiled by working at home, aren’t you.”

“‘M not,” Phil mumbles, even though he definitely is.

He manages to force himself out of bed and to change into clothes for the day. And Phil likes Karen, but he isn’t sure if he wants to be left alone with her. So when Dan leaves to “run to the shop” to get them all some breakfast, he starts worrying, just a little. But retreating back to the guest bedroom after already coming out would probably be rude.

“Do you want some coffee, Phil?” she asks as Phil sits down at the dining table, ready to make small talk. “I already made some for myself.”

“Oh, um. Thank you.”

She pours him a mug of something that’s probably much more fancy than what Phil’s used to, and he doesn’t have the heart to tell her that the amount of sugar she puts in is definitely too little. He takes it with a smile and looks down when she takes a seat right next to him.

He can feel her looking at him as he takes a sip, and okay. So it’s more uncomfortable than Phil was anticipating. But Phil’s dealt with worse. It was fine yesterday and he refuses to let things get awkward now.

Before Phil has the chance to try and think of some topic of conversation, Karen says, “You know, I wanted to talk to you about something yesterday, but I didn't get the chance.”

He sits up a little straighter. “What is it?”

“Dan isn't the best at talking about serious things,” she says. “I don't think there's ever been a time I asked how he was and he didn't answer _fine_.”

Phil chuckles. “I can picture that.”

“I'm not sure what… arrangement you two have.” She averts her gaze to her coffee. “But I can tell you that a bond isn't something to be taken lightly.”

Phil's mouth runs dry. “Oh.”

“I'm not sure if he's told you, but I was in a bond myself. And it didn't go very well.”

“I'm… sorry.”

She sweeps a hand through her hair. “We bonded pretty early on in our relationship. Not quite the level of you and Dan, but we weren’t—we weren’t ready for something that serious.”

Phil nods.

“Because it was almost like a commitment. If marriage is legally binding, a bond’s physically binding.”

“Yeah. Dan’s talked about that,” Phil says.

“We tried to work it out. It got ridiculous at one point. I’d say something and he’d feel hurt, and then I’d get mad. Like he was purposely feeling bad so I’d have to feel it. A passive aggressive thing, even though there’s no way that’s what it was.”

Phil sits quietly as she talks. He’s not sure how much she’s expecting him to respond, because it almost feels like she’s venting.

“I used to think there wasn’t enough honestly or communication or some other concrete problem,” she says, “but now I honestly just think we weren’t suited to being bonded. When you think about it, I bet a lot of people aren't.”

When Phil nods again, she sits back and takes a deep breath. “Anyway, I’m not saying this because I like oversharing or I want to scare you. I just hope whatever you two do, you come out of it without being hurt. Especially Dan. Sorry, I like you, but I’m his mum,” she says with a smile.

Phil takes a moment to speak. It’s not that he’s not taking what she’s trying to say to heart, but his first reaction is to reassure her. 

“Dan and I… things were a bit hard at the start, maybe. But ever since we got closer, it's been… I dunno. It's not so bad.”

“I can tell you care about him,” she says, and Phil nearly flushes. “It's a pleasure to see. I'm glad it hasn't been causing too many problems.”

And the thing is, Phil knows it will eventually.

There's bound to be at least one time where they clash, one time that they feel something the other doesn’t want them to. One time where an effect bothers them and they bicker. Probably a lot more than one time.

Phil remembers a time when he was a teenager. His friend had invited him to go with her and her family on a holiday, somewhere tropical and expensive. And he'd refused, because he'd envisioned awkwardness with her family, motion sickness on the journey over, taking up space where he wasn't really wanted.

So another one of her friends had taken his place, and when they got back they'd said it was one of the best experiences of their lives.

Before Phil started working freelance, he'd worked in an office. He'd gotten along with all his coworkers, generally because he didn't gossip and did the work he was given in a timely manner with no complaints. When he'd started looking for something different, one of the friends he'd made got him an interview with a company that was probably way too prestigious for someone so early on in their career. But somehow he'd made it through two interviews and landed an offer.

And it was like something in him had shut down. He would’ve been working on a bigger team, with people he'd pictured as much more important and wise than him, where a fuck up would get him judged as well as in trouble. He would’ve been interacting with clients face-to-face, and irrational scenarios of unreasonable, screaming people demanding to see his boss had played in his head.

So he'd turned it down.

He doesn't necessarily regret it, but his whole life has been filled with things like that. Opportunities he’d turned down, invitations he’d rejected, risks he didn’t take.

And sometimes he wonders where he'd be if he'd seen where they took him, instead of giving up. Instead of deciding he couldn't do it before he even experienced whatever it was he was so afraid of.

He knows there's going to be conflict with the bond eventually. He doesn't know how serious it'll be or how often it'll occur, but it's inevitable.

And he's not sure if it's because it’s Dan, or if he’s just grown since back then, but he thinks he'd be okay with seeing how it goes.

“I think even if it did,” Phil says slowly, “we’d be okay. We’d work it out. We’re surprisingly good at talking about this stuff. I mean, unless Dan’s silently suffering and just not saying anything.”

Karen laughs. “That’s not totally unimaginable. But you’re probably right. Anyway, that’s all I care about. If you two are fine with it, I’m fine with it.”

Dan gets back before their little heart-to-heart can go on any longer. It turns out there isn't a whole lot to do when they know they have to leave around noon to catch the train. By the time they eat and finish getting ready for the day, it’s already after 10.

“I feel like this was kinda a useless trip,” Dan says. They’ve somehow drifted back to the guest bedroom, and Dan’s laying on the bed on his phone. Phil’s sitting at the desk in the corner.

“You did say your mum just wanted to meet me,” Phil says. “It’s not like I came up here expecting a proper holiday.”

“True. At least now she’ll stop bugging me,” he says. “Or, actually, she’s probably gonna tease me even more now. Shit.”

Phil’s not sure what to say to that, so he looks around the room. “Is this not the house you grew up in?” Phil asks, remembering Karen's comment of _you've been here before_.

“Hm? Oh, no. She only moved here a couple years ago. The town I spent my dear childhood in was even more boring than this one, if you can believe that.”

“What were you like when you were younger?” Phil asks. “I kinda feel like you were the exact same.”

Dan shoots him a glare. “Why do I feel like that’s an insult? But I guess you’re right. A little more irritable and impulsive and unappreciative, but like. I think that’s normal teenage stuff.”

Phil hums. “I wonder if we would’ve gotten on if we were the same age. I feel like I would’ve thought you were all cool and got intimidated.”

“Are you saying I’m not cool and intimidating now?” Dan puts his phone down and shifts his attention to Phil. “Also, if you were as much as a nerd back then as you are now, I would’ve loved you. I was desperate for friends I thought were as weird as me.”

“Weird? I don’t believe you. What’d you get up to?”

“Well, I dunno. I listened to music. Played video games. Hung out with friends at the mall. Nothing too exciting. Was really into Youtube for a while, which I guess wasn’t that weird, but it felt like it at the time.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Phil says. 

Dan rolls over to his side and tucks his hands under the pillow. “I guess. Life before uni wasn’t really that terrible. I mean—not that after is _terrible_. Just, you know. A lot of adult shit and crises.”

“The adult shit never really goes away, unfortunately.”

“Look at you talking like you’re all wise. Also, you’ve only got four years on me, geezer.”

“I’m definitely not wise,” Phil says with a laugh. “I basically just stumble through and hope for the best in literally everything I do.”

They talk a bit more, about personal but ultimately meaningless things. Phil finds himself silently listening more than anything, but he doesn’t get bored. After a while, Dan groans and stands up. He walks over to where his luggage is open on the floor and starts packing up the pyjamas that’d been haphazardly thrown atop it. “God, sorry for rambling about myself so much. I try not to do that.”

“No, it’s—” _It’s fine_ , Phil goes to say, but that’s not quite right. “Don’t say sorry for that. I like hearing about you. I wish you’d tell me more.”

Dan looks at him with something akin to curiosity, and something that’s always there when he looks at Phil. “What do you want to know?”

“Well. I dunno. Tell me something interesting.”

Dan hums. He walks around the room a bit, then sits back on the bed. Phil almost thinks he’s ignoring him, but then he says, “I could tell you something fucked up.”

“That’s mildly ominous, but okay.”

“I think in a weird way, I was glad I got bonded to you. I mean, after I realized you weren’t a serial killer.”

Phil’s mouth goes dry, at the same time his heartbeat picks up. “You were?”

“Yeah. Like. You were cool and nice and fun.” Dan’s face is decidedly neutral. “And the bond gave us an excuse to hang out, plus it meant you kinda had to start liking me if you didn’t want to be completely miserable with the whole thing. Also it meant you couldn’t just up and leave. Which is funny because that’s the one thing that scared me, I guess I’m a hypocrite like that.”

“Dan, I don’t like you just because—”

“I know,” Dan interrupts. “I know that now. I’m not _that_ insecure. That’s just how I thought at first, before I realized you like me just as much as I like you. Which, let me tell you, was weird. Realizing it wasn’t just like, me being annoying and clingy and way too enthusiastic.”

Something clicks into place, in the back of Phil’s mind. Something that makes his blood run hot and his hands clench. 

He realizes that this is probably a moment. A perfect moment, an opportunity to tell Dan exactly what’s been on his mind lately. So he says, “I don’t think that’s something fucked up.”

Dan looks up at him. “Phil. Look, we literally feel each other’s emotions. Or, okay, we don’t _literally_ feel them, but usually it’s pretty clear if there’s context clues. But also, even if we didn’t… it’s sort of obvious, mate.”

“What?” Phil asks with a laugh, because what’s coming out of Dan’s mouth isn’t connecting. Or, it’s connecting, but Phil doesn’t quite believe what he’s hearing. “I don’t get what you’re trying to say.”

“I’m saying, I know. But also, you should know too. The bond goes both ways. And I don’t think I’m very subtle, in general.” 

Phil’s world slows to a stop.

For some reason, the first thing that crosses is mind is that he doesn’t understand where Dan’s boundless confidence is coming from. At the same time, something hits him. _You should know too_. And—

All the burning flare-ups of heat when they’d tease each other.

The drips of warmth down the back of his spine the one time he’d offered to let Dan stay the night.

All the fake flirting Dan would do, that Phil probably had no excuse for dismissing as fake.

Maybe it was obvious. And maybe, it was just as obvious to Dan too.

He’s a bit in shock. After all his planning and consideration, it almost feels like the carpet was yanked out from under him. Even though he’d had a suspicion that Dan felt something for him, he’d never thought Dan would say anything about it. He thought he’d have to do it himself.

“You’re right,” Phil finally says after a moment’s pause, because he figures it’s really not fair to Dan to have to sit there doing all the talking. “I… I like you. You know. Have feelings. Didn’t think you knew, but I guess you’re right about it being obvious.”

Dan breathes out a sigh and his shoulders slump. “Finally. Fuck. Jesus. Maybe it’s my fault for not saying something earlier, but that felt like pulling teeth.”

“I was planning on saying something, you know,” Phil says. He looks down and taps meaninglessly at the desk. “I think if things would’ve went on for much longer, I would’ve. I was kinda waiting for some big moment. Which I know is stupid.”

“I figured if you wanted to do anything about it, you would. But also I get really impulsive and impatient. As in, I literally didn’t plan on telling you at all today until you asked for something interesting.”

“Wow,” Phil says. “I wish I could be that decisive.”

So, it’s out there.

Phil’s not sure if it’s the shock, but it sort of feels like nothing’s changed. There’s no fireworks, no giddy smiles and running into each other's arms. 

“Anyway, can we kiss now?” Dan asks.

“Um.” Well, there’s a little flutter of butterflies.

“Or like, what’s the normal amount of time to wait for kissing? I’m out of practise with this all.”

“I think that’s like. First date stuff? But I’m pretty sure by this point we qualify for way more than the first date. And also, I don’t care.”

Phil walks over to where Dan’s sitting and just sort of lingers for a few beats, because he’s a little out of practise too and it still kind of feels like this is a joke. But then Dan grabs his hand and yanks him down so that he’s sitting right next to him.

And—Dan’s leaning in now, one hand still holding Phil’s wrist. Phil faintly thinks that at least this will bring him back down into reality. Dan’s face is so close Phil has to focus to see the way his eyes flick down to Phil’s lips. 

And then he changes course, buries his face in the junction of Phil’s neck and shoulder, and groans.

“Um. Dan?” Phil asks, after giving him a moment to continue being weird. “You alright down there?”

Dan pulls back a bit. He bites his lip and lets go of Phil’s wrist to grip the duvet instead. And for a second Phil thinks he’s joking, like he’s mocking the shy innocent act people get around each other for first kisses. But the tips of his ears are a soft red and he glances away and huffs out a laugh and says, “Sorry, I’m. I’m nervous.”

Phil died, surely. Phil must’ve died earlier in his sleep, and this is just his own personal package from heaven to thank him for that one time when he was six and helped his elderly neighbor find her dog.

He hesitantly brings a hand up to the side of Dan’s face—hesitantly, because he’s still not sure he’s allowed to touch, it still hasn’t quite sunk in yet—and presses with just the tips of his fingers, until Dan tilts his head back up from the floor to look Phil in the eyes. He feels like he should say something sweet or profound, but he just says, “Okay. I’m gonna kiss you now.”

It starts as slow presses, tentative brushes with just a bit of pressure. It isn’t a shock, when Dan puts an arm on his shoulder and shifts closer, but it’s still enough to send a thrill down Phil’s spine. Phil’s uncomfortably aware of where exactly they are. But he can’t stop himself from wanting to touch, so he just gently traces the line of Dan’s jaw with his fingers, trails up and down the side of his neck until he settles on tracing circles into his nape. He means it to be soothing, but Dan shudders against him and makes a delicate noise that Phil’s probably going to be thinking about for the rest of the night.

Phil pulls away once the room starts to feel a little too warm, because Dan might make him feel like he’s back to his fumbling teenage self sometimes, but having to worry about being overheard by parents again is definitely too much.

The way Dan’s looking at him, all hesitance and and bit-back excitement and hunger, almost makes Phil want to pull him right into his lap. But Phil takes a deep breath and tries to clear his head. They should probably talk. They should talk, definitely, about things. Important things. Phil isn’t even sure what Dan’s looking for here, exactly. Are they together now? Are they boyfriends? The whole reason Phil didn’t say anything to Dan yet was because of the bond, and they haven’t even brought that up.

But he’s just so relaxed and loose and happy, he decides to shove that aside. His future self can get mad at him all he wants.

“If your mum heard us talking, I’m gonna die,” Phil says, trying to break the tension a bit.

Dan turns and swings his legs off the bed. “Oi, I’m the one that was saying everything. But also, true. I can’t even imagine the blackmail.”

“Make sure I properly thank her before we leave. She paid for my meal last night.”

Dan rolls his eyes. “So proper. You gonna tell her you came over just to get into her son’s pants, too?”

Phil shoves him away, and Dan falls laughing as his head hits the pillow.

***

They get back in the late afternoon, and Dan turns to Phil, looks like he almost wants to say or do something, but seems to think better of it. He says he’ll be over tomorrow at the usual time and leaves.

Maybe Dan had been the one to confess first, but for once in his life, Phil just wants to be straightforward. He’s going to talk to Dan tomorrow night, like a mature, responsible adult. He’s going to ask what exactly it is Dan wants, because Phil doesn’t think he could do casual. Not with Dan.

Dan knock on his door in the evening the next day, and with a full day of overthinking under his belt, Phil’s about ready to throw the door open and ask Dan if he wants this to be serious right there. But he contains himself, and opens the door to find Dan standing there with his hands in the pockets of his coat.

“Hi,” Dan says.

“Hi,” Phil repeats.

He steps aside to let Dan inside. They’re both quiet as Dan takes off his coat, and Phil should probably ease into this, somehow. But Phil’s been thinking about this all day, and he really just wants to get it off his chest. So he only waits until Dan turns around to say, “I think if we get together, the bond isn’t going to break.”

Dan keeps a straight face for about a couple seconds before bursting into laughter. “Jesus—you don’t pull any punches, huh?”

Phil opens and closes his mouth as he tries to think of what to say, but Dan quiets down and rubs at the corner of his eye.

“But, yeah,” Dan says. “I figured that.”

“Are you… okay with that?” Phil asks, because out of everything, that’s what he needs to know.

Dan grins at him. “Heavy question there, mate.”

“Well… what else am I supposed to ask?”

Dan seems to ignore him. He slips past Phil to go plop down on the sofa. “So I guess you like me then, huh? That wasn’t just a weird fever dream?”

“You literally said it was obvious. So yes, _obviously_ I like you.” Phil doesn’t know why his heart is pounding so hard. Dan effectively said all the hard things yesterday, it’s not like Phil doesn’t know if Dan likes him back or not.

“I think I was, like. Overtaken by a spirit of confidence that’d been haunting my mum’s house. Because my self of the past couple weeks definitely didn’t find it obvious. Or, well, was too busy weighing his options to care.”

“Weighing his options?” Phil asks incredulously. “What is this, a business deal?”

“I dunno, man.” Dan shrugs. “If I’m gonna put up with you I need some sorta benefit.”

Phil walks over and flicks Dan on the ear. “You’re an actual ass.”

Dan rubs the side of his face. “Um, ow. Anyway, bond. Right. I… well firstly, I thought you were the one with all the issues. Why’re you asking if _I’d_ be okay?”

Phil could deflect or make a joke or something, but he just looks down, picks at the side of his thumb, and says, “Because I think I like you enough to balance out all that.”

The silence that follows is deafening. Phil didn’t think that what he wanted to say was so shocking, but apparently he was wrong. It’s like Phil flipped a switch, shifted the atmosphere from lighthearted to serious in a blink of an eye. 

“Oh,” Dan says quietly.

And, when Phil thinks about it, the bond has its advantages.

Because if it wasn’t for the bond, Phil can’t even imagine how much he’d be panicking right now, thinking he’d fucked up and analyzing what Dan’s tone of voice meant. But there’s something spreading, starting from the nape of his neck. Slow and honey-sweet, it radiates out until the tips of his fingers are tingling with it, until his limbs get heavy and weak, until he’s struck with an odd urge to scrunch away and giggle. He wants to make a joke at the ridiculousness of it— _oi, mate, your emotions are tickling me_ —but he’s not sure if the mood is right.

But it does encourage him enough to say, “So, yeah. I want to be with you, like, as a serious thing. If that isn’t clear.”

Dan is suddenly fascinated by something on the wall. “You really wanna get all serious about a guy that barely knows where his life is going?”

“You’re twenty-three, I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to know that yet. I don’t even know, so stop making me feel bad, thanks.”

Dan looks back over at him. He almost looks like he’s glaring, but he says, “Well. I guess I want that too. Lucky us.”

Phil can’t help the stupidly wide smile he feels bloom. He goes and takes a seat next to Dan.

“You don’t care about the bond?” he asks.

“Honestly, I don’t think I’ve been bothered by this whole thing nearly as much as you. Especially after it settled. I always just sorta… take what life gives me at this point, and I dunno if it’s because of that or what, but… yeah.”

“I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing,” Phil says, nudging Dan’s leg with his.

“It’s worked out pretty well for me so far.” Dan nudges Phil’s leg right back. “At least for this.”

There’s a couple moments of pleasant silence before Dan asks, “But have you ever worried that it somehow, like. Came from the bond? Or was influenced by it?”

“No, to be honest.” And isn’t that a surprise. Phil really needs to catch up on his overthinking lately.

Dan shoots him a disbelieving look. “Really, now. I mean… logically, I know it can’t. It doesn’t work that way. But sometimes I, I dunno. I can’t help myself.”

For once, Phil doesn’t even have to think. The words just come to him.

“Do you remember that time when I came out of the bathroom and saw you looking at your phone, sobbing? And I started freaking out, but it turned out you were watching a video about a penguin that lost his mate? I felt guilty about it since you were actually really upset, but I just wanted to like. I dunno. Sit down next to you and wrap you in a blanket and do something really bloody stupid like squish your cheeks.”

“Nice to know you see me as a five year old,” Dan says.

Phil ignores him. “I don’t think the bond even has the ability to cause something like that. I don’t think feeling your emotions sometimes is what makes me want to catalog away every childhood anecdote you’ve told me or blurt out all the stupid little things I’m worrying about, because talking stuff out with you always makes me feel better.”

Phil’s looking off to the side, because he’s never been the best with words and he feels too exposed to make eye contact right now. Though it’s not like he has to worry about Dan reacting too negatively, with the way the bond’s gone haywire, the way his whole body seems to be buzzing with whatever it is Dan’s feeling right now.

“I think… the bond is what brought us together,” he continues. “Obviously. I mean, I know I never would’ve hit on you in the cafe or anything like that, so. But, like. If somehow we would’ve ended up closer, I’m almost positive I would’ve fallen for you anyway. For the exact some reasons I have now.”

Dan reaches over, shoves Phil so hard he tips over, and says in a voice Phil’s never heard from him before, “Oh my god, you’re a sap, shut _up_. This is the worst experience of my life. Is this what I signed up for?”

Phil remembers something Cornelia had told him once. If there’s something in the future that’s going to suck, let it suck then. Don’t give it the power to affect Phil’s life for any longer than it absolutely has to.

He’s pretty sure it applies twofold if it’s just the potential of something happening.

Being in a bond will probably complicate things. They’ll probably have to work harder, communicate better, set boundaries that other people wouldn’t need to. The inability to shut it out might make it all implode one day.

“Am I obligated to start monologuing about all the reasons I like you now?” Dan’s scooted to the far end of the sofa. He’s looking at Phil with something a little wild, a little happy in his eyes. “Okay, let’s see—you’re like, one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, like, in a genuinely good way. You take my shit but also give it right back, and honestly both sides of that are pretty vital for me. You always seem to assume the best of me. Which is questionable, but okay. You’re hot when you’re kinda grumpy and’ve been working all day. I started thinking about your dick within like, the first month, which I admit is pretty normal for me but also—”

“Stop!” Phil says, lunging over to cover Dan’s mouth. “Stop, it’s fine, I believe you.”

Dan licks his hand and grins when Phil fake-gags. “I also like how you get flustered by compliments.”

“I’m not flustered, Dan, my god, you'd need to do better than that.”

“Do you even know how red your neck gets? Like, do you realize you've got such an obvious tell? Also, bond magic, sorry.”

“Shut up. I only like you because you’re a hot younger guy, by the way.”

“What happened to your dramatic speech about how you’d fall for me in any world? Which, wow, by the way. You’ve _fallen_ for me? I didn’t take you for such a romantic.”

“I didn’t say _in any world_ , you nutter, I—”

This thing with Dan fell right into his lap, and it’s in Phil’s nature to resist it. There has to be some catch, something that proves it’s too good to be true. His instinct is to be prepared for the other shoe to drop, because he doesn’t want to be blindsided when it does. He hates hearing _I told you so_ from anyone, including himself.

But Phil also sees another version. A version where it works out fine. A version where even if they do clash, they always find their way back together. A version where Phil will look back on this moment and be nothing but thankful that he decided to take a risk.

And he thinks no matter which one he ends up with, getting to spend the meantime with Dan would make it worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated. (Tumblr post [[here]](http://www.mistymallow.tumblr.com/post/181463848329/))


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